#as again it is not my community i am only someone with cPTSD who wants the best for other traumatised people

[joyful-witch]

I normally avoid talking about fandom or drama on my main but I think as someone who has experienced abuse I wanted to share my perspective on the “Wilbur situation” and make a slight vent post about it while also discussing my issues with how some in the community have handled this situation.

TW discussions of abuse

Disclaimer: for those that know me, I do have two exes. The ex I will be mentioning in this post is the first one. Not my most recent ex. I am on good terms with my ex girlfriend and we are good friends now. This is NOT about her. This is about the man who gave me CPTSD.

I haven’t spoken much about my experience of abuse publicly because it feels like it was something I only recently escaped, and I honestly didn’t want word getting to him about it because the idea of him contacting me again makes me want to throw up. But he doesn’t use tumblr so I feel confident I can talk about this here.

I was with an abusive man for almost 4 years of my life. About a year in I realized I was gay but I stayed because I was scared of him and I was scared he was going to hurt himself or me. Listening to Shelby talk about what was done to her reminds me so much of what happened to me. Between the neglect and the love bombing, to the “I’m stronger than you” statement and refusal to abide by safe words and even weaponizing them…not to mention his knowing she was previously assaulted and still doing the things he did…it just…felt like I was looking in a mirror. Except it was so much worse. I was lucky in the fact that most of my relationship with my abuser happened when we were in high school because I was able to escape from him. Shelby had to live in the same space as this horrible man on multiple occasions and I cannot begin to fathom how awful that must have been.

The pain and suffering she has been put through is unforgivable, and William Gold deserves every bit of backlash he has gotten. And he does not deserve to have any sort of platform anymore. But I want to specifically address some of the people who have expressed issues with Shelby and other CCs regarding the situation.

I have seen several people be upset at Shelby for “not coming out sooner” and for other CCs not coming out sooner and “not calling him out” sooner. And as a victim of abuse, it is not our jobs to placate you and tell you everything that happened to us. We have every right to process what has happened to us. It is difficult to process, difficult to admit. It took me months after I left him to finally acknowledge my ex had treated me badly, let alone that he had abused me. And I know I sure as hell would not have wanted anyone speaking FOR me about the abuse that I had endured.

There is no timeline for recovering from abuse and just because you’re pissed that you supported a monster for so long doesn’t mean you have any right to throw a hissy fit about the victim “not saying it sooner”. Grow the fuck up. Find a new musician to listen to. And support victims, always.

Anyways, fuck Wilbur Soot I hope he rots

Support Shelby, she deserves the world and more. I’m so proud of you Shelby and I stand with you.

[traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors]

Hi, I just need some nice words and someone who listens and doesn't judge.

Complicated life-story etc. at some point I suspected I am a system so I was doing a lot of listening inside myself, writing down symptoms that could indicate it etc. It is still not super certain to me, there is no communication to any alter that I would swear isn't just a thought-voice. But I am relatively certain and can I say, happy about it? I once sent in an ask here and you said "If you think you'd profit from being a system, you most likely are one" and this has really stuck with me and elevated a lot of my guilt, because I would feel better if I was a system.

And here comes the problem: I started therapy for CPTSD, and my therapist doesn't know about my suspense (yet). Last week, she made an allegory (or metaphor? Help) about one of my symptoms. It is one of the symptoms I use as (internal) "proof" for my DID-suspence.

She said: "When you are very angry (i.e.) you might see the world completely different, as if you'd wear colorful tinted glasses." And it was literally the same example I would use when describing it to myself. (When I was a child, my uncle gifted me orange-tinted glasses, and I wore them the whole winter when I was feeling low because it was so dark outside. I tricked myself into believing there is sun. So, this literal example is so close to me).

But like, I literally feel like another person, that I can't really relate to, their though-processes etc, sometimes I feel completely seperated from it and can just watch and wonder (and cringe and try to stop myself).

But since she explained this symptom as normal trauma symptom, with literally the same image, I am questioning myself again. I mean, at the end of the day, I do have DID or not. But just the thought that it might not be the case makes me feel so lonely and vulnerable.. Idk...

Hi anon,

Regardless of whether or not you are a system, those who are first considering the possibility of being plural will not have good communication with any of their parts if at all, and many times parts don't feel comfortable making themselves known until much inner exploration is done. It's not like a light switch where suddenly you can see all your parts and communicate back and forth with complete clarity. That's a muscle that needs to be exercised slowly over time.

I understand that fear of being alone inside. You've been through so much that it's daunting to think about having to process that all by yourself. Being a part of a larger network of parts helps distribute the weight and responsibility more evenly, giving you a fraction of relief. Of course you'd want that. It's hard to consider the possibility that you really are the only one, and it must be frustrating that the answer remains unclear.

It's been about a month since I was diagnosed with OSDD (still trying to comprehend that), and I'm by no means a professional, but I resonate with a lot of what you shared. If you can, I do recommend getting a professional opinion about all of this, especially someone who is experienced or specialized in dissociative disorders (that can be kinda hard to find). They can give you a much more educated opinion and could even evaluate you for OSDD or DID if that's something you're considering.

I also don't know if I suggested this to you in the past but the CDD discord server is a great place to ask plural-related questions and reassurance. Thosey are always happy to help people figure out what's going on in their brains and whether or not an experience is a system thing or not.

I hope I could help. You're welcome in our inbox anytime.

-Bun

[penumbrialhexandroga]

I put this in a discord chat im in but i wanted to put it here too. Today i got diagnosed by my therapist with c-ptsd.

Hhhh today is a day of surthriving. Had therapy this morning and was rough, but i was able to communicate some of my frustrations well. Got some clarification on stuff. Like he said forget about any of the schizophrenia stuff, i dont have it, so thats a relief. He said for a clinical dx i do have CPTSD. And that my episode that id had before when i started seeing him was a dissocaitive episode. So it was nice to get clarification on that i was thinking it was like a psychotic or manic or something but dissociative makes sense with what all went on. Ugh gah but then talked with a real young part and stuff coming up and just ugh fuck i hate. People. Just very heavy. Having things validated. But im so grateful for the coping mechanisms ive developed. Hhhhhhh fuck its just hard. Heavy heavy heavy. Just trying so hard to keep every thing contained so i can get through work. Thank god for Work Mode 🙏. Id been dxed with ptsd already but i did suspect it was cptsd but man having that validated by a therapist ugh i just feel like ive been taking punches and punching brick walls >.< idk i just wanted to express this all somewhere. "Put it out there"

Thats what i put in the chat earlier.

Idk i wanted to write about it i guess. He was saying too how like a diagnosis yknow its fluid it can change. Which im fully on board with i know it can only really be a snapshot of your current whatever experiences. But one thing i really appreciate about getting that dx and that validation and assurance is that it supplies me the language to tell my story. I realized that that was one issue that i had with how generally non-pathologizing my therapist is. Its also something i appreciate about him though, but i just felt like i couldnt really. Like not even tell my story but know my story. I felt lost and confused and uncertain about what my experience was and how i fit in with the world and people around me.

Who really am i? What defines me as an individual? It helps me answer these questions more fully. Not to say my diagnoses are all that i am or can capture the complexity of me as a being.

Its incredibly validating to do this work. I feel alive and autonomous in a way i never really have before. Some of the parts i work with are so so young. If i wasnt doing this work with a therapist i dont think i would really be able to do it. So im very grateful for my circumstances that allow me that. Although i can tell my therapist wants to do more frequent sessions, but it is expensive and insurance sucks so. Idk. Is what it is.

Ugh but this work also fucking sucks and makes things so so hard. But i know im better for it. Gahhahahshbsgdgdgdhd.

Oh man im also really glad too he labeled what that episode was. I was thinking it was a psychotic or manic and maybe i had bipolar, bc some of my family has been dxed with that. But no he said it was CPTSD. and a dissociative episode. Which man even just writing that out again its just. I cant even really identify how it makes me feel its just this kinda hmmm pressure?? Electrical flux? Along the back of my head.

Im grateful for being able to communicate better with my parts too. I was able to get across some things today that i havent been able to for a while and im glad things went well, even if it got tough. Really friggin tough. I know im moving in the right direction.

Id already been diagnosed with ptsd but that was through my psych who specialized in autism and idk it didnt really sink in. Its different now getting diagnosed by someone who knows me very well, ive been seeing him for like over two years now, so i have a lot of trust in his oppinion. But gosh so many raw nerves. Plus its c -ptsd which like, doesnt mean its worse than ptsd or anything lol some people seem to think that but thats more what i was suspecting. It just made more sense to me than standard ptsd with all the dissociation. But i feel really validated and seen and heard and hmm self assured even! Which is so rare for me. I feel like there was a lot of movement and change today. So this post is really just to commemorate it all. Getting diagnosed with cptsd tho, for me its very different than it was getting diagnosed with autism. Maybe thats because of meeting with that part right after tho :/

[phoenixshallrise]

You also spelled Scarlett’s name wrong

and imo don’t acknowledge how impressions of an event can vary and that isn’t evidence of lying for someone reporting this kind of thing. It is so extremely common for someone who consented to sex but not specific sex acts and was coerced or surprised with those (itself a form of coercion especially in the presence of BEING THE EMPLOYEE OF A RICH FAMOUS GUY) to spend years — not just the weeks she spent but even longer — telling herself and the partner and the world that it’s all great no problem here. Or to tell very inconsistent narratives about whether they consented or not. It’s coming to terms with it and usually fabricating the enthusiastic consent to cover up feeling violated or out of control when you feel like you know reporting does nothing but hurt you and you still love and idolize the partner anyway so you sweep it all under the rug. I did this and my violator (I still don’t feel like saying rape for it because it makes me feel like someone will immediately attack me as a “liar” and “bad whore reneging on her deal” but it was a violation he then doubled down on) was only locally famous in my social circle. And still there was this huge pressure in my head to just… pretend like it was all wonderful. To almost play defense attorney’s best little “get fucked however he likes and grin and bear it” helper and lay down a paper trail of affirming I LOVED THAT I LOVE YOU I AM SO VERY OK WITH EVERYTHING… when… I was not. I had had things switched on me way out of anything I had consented to very fast. It was facing my cptsd symptoms and panic at anything that reminded me of it and at him at times that finally made me “change my tune” and admit something bad happened. And he attacked me socially for it and called me crazy. And most people believed him and it was so worse I don’t know how I am here today. That is what I see happening again not to Scarlett or K necessarily but to the millions of others when their community still believes it’s super suspicious that they “said it was all good and now change their tune” instead of a very common pattern for survivors of these cases of sexual coercion and violation within consented relationships

Thank you for sharing your experience. I’m sorry that happened to you and I apologize for misspelling Scarlett’s name. I didn’t mean to imply the texts were evidence that their relationship was consensual, I just wanted to say that there were texts that expressed reciprocal sexual enjoyment. They could be real, they could be her covering up her discomfort out of fear. We don’t know. We only know that they exist.

[unhingedbehavior]

I have so much baggage and feel like I’ll never be loved because of it. I also feel like I lost the sense of who I was when I lost my high school best friend to suicide not even a year after we graduated. People tried to comfort me after the funeral but I became resentful and irritable at the people who didn’t understand my pain and kind of destroyed our bond by quickly cutting off communication or changing my feelings of love into hate due to the fear of abandonment. I hate to be that person that self-diagnoses but I feel like I suffer from BPD, my past therapists have only diagnosed me with CPTSD, Depression, and anxiety, but BPD is hard to diagnose if I’m being validated for my pain the entire time. Thus, why I say I have BPD tendencies rather than BPD itself. I feel like I am the problem, and I don’t know what to do.

At this point, I’ve lost all my close friends and cut off family members even because I just am so sick and tired of having to mask in order to be deemed functional or normal when I’m not.

I’m not okay and pretending like I am just makes me feel fake.

People patronize me by saying “…you just need to stop feeling sorry for yourself” or “you’re still crying over it?” are the same people who have never had to deal with such loss. Their ignorance is bliss.

Honestly, you think losing someone to suicide would make me become more kind and empathetic but, it didn’t.

The truth is, I was already kind and empathetic. But, after losing you..

It made me hate the world.

It made me hate people.

It made me hate myself.

It made me experience compassion fatigue.

I want to get better, but I don’t know how. I have to just somehow have faith in the world again but it seems like such an impossible task.

I wanted to be loved as a form of distraction at some point but it turned me into an ugly person who was desperately craving affection from all the wrong people, places, and things. Now the list of embarrassing things I hate myself for increases and I will forever think about why I did the things I did.

I miss you more and more everyday and I have so much regret and resentment built up because I wasn’t there for you.

I guess I deserve it though.

You felt alone in your last moments and it was my job that you didn’t feel that way.

I’m sorry I failed you as a best friend.

I love you V.

[alpaca-clouds]

BG3 fans, we gotta talk CPTSD

Okay, I have spend about a week considering writing this blog, but I really gotta say, that it is something people really need to understand. See, I mostly see this issue with Astarion and his depiction in fandom. However, I would argue that it is a thing that affects literally all characters that play some sort of bigger in this entire game. Including many NPCs.

But let me start with Astarion. See, I wrote the blog two weeks ago about people being judgy on people, who do not want to have graveyard sex with him. Mostly people will argue how Astarion should be allowed to have his agency in that moment - while I argued that whoever the player is playing should have also agency in that scene. Including the agency to say "no" for whatever reason. I also included that my Tav absolutely denied Astarion, because he was not trusting that Astarion in the scene really was ready for it, for a variety of reasons. Which is very much a valid reason for someone not to want to sleep with someone else. (Literally every reason is a good reason for that, mind you.)

And obviously there came the comment, that went basically: "As someone who was raped I am very appalled by you saying that raped people cannot consent." Which is very much not what I said.

What I said was, that my Tav did not consent. Yes, he did not consent because he thought Astarion was not ready for it - but he is the one not consenting. It does not matter for this whether his assumption about Astarion is true or not. Tav does not feel comfortable in the scene, so Tav does not want sex right there.

However... If you consider the drow orgy scene, Tav is also very much right. If you do that scene after defeating Cazador, Astarion is enthusiastically consenting to that orgy, but he still ends up dissociating during the scene. (And in that scene, even if your character notices it, you cannot go "Stop!" Which I hate.)

Here is the thing. If you are in the BDSM scene, you might actually have encountered a scenario in real life where someone was enthusiastically consenting to something - only to them realize, that they were not into it at all. And people can withdraw their consent IRL at this point. Only that in this game, obviously you can't. So within the game choices I will just start out with "no" for this character.

Still, that is actually not what I mainly wanted to talk about. No.

What I wanted to talk about is the other thing. I absolutely know that for a variety of reasons a lot of SA survivors do identify with Astarion, and I do not want to take that from anyone. I think it is amazing that we got a character with whom we see this issue portrayed seriously. And let's face it. Especially in tumblr fandom circles, we will have a lot of SA survivors, because the userbase of this website is majority afab, and many are queer. And we know from statistics that queer afab people are even more likely than non-queer afab people to experience SA at some point in there life. So, yes, Astarion is going to be embraced by this community makes sense - even without his dashing looks.

But here we get to the actual meat of the issue: Astarion was not just raped. Astarion was abused in a variety of ways - some of them sexual - over the course of 200 years. He went not through a single traumatic event, but an ongoing trauma that, again, lasted for 200 years.

Or to put different: Astarion does not have PTSD. He has C-PTSD. Complex trauma. The kind of trauma that develops when the trauma lasts over a long, long time, without the survivor getting a chance to ever really properly ever relax. Something that was very true for Astarion's time under Cazador. He was under constant threat of rape, torture, and other forms of violence.

While CPTSD is a form of PTSD, it has some differing symptoms - and additional symptoms from plain old PTSD.

I found this graphic on this blog here, and found it fairly good in the depictions. (If you google CPTSD you will find several graphics like this.) It shows very well the additional symptoms, compared to normal trauma.

Generally speaking, CPTSD brings a lot stronger issues with self-worth, interpersonal problems, and emotional regulation. CPTSD folks are often prone to emotional outbursts (this graphic names anger, but technically it can be all other kinds of emotional outbursts - which is why at times CPTSD gets confused with BPD).

And Astarion is written like this. He shows very much all the symptoms of CPTSD. And let's be honest: That is an issue he will have to deal with for a long, long while.

But... As I said, the same is actually true for pretty much all the characters.

If you look at the companions, it is obvious.

Gale spent at least a year in constant fear of blowing up. While Mystra's abusiveness towards him within the relationship prior the orb is more fanon than canon (though the relationship was defnitely not an easy one), the "one year in constant fear of death" is very likely going to instill some form of CPTSD in him.

Karlach was a slave for 10 years, forced to fight in the hells. While she will also probably suffer from certain forms of PTSD more common in soldiers. Additionally I would argue that she also has some CPTSD from tiefling-racism. While she does not bring it up often... She does seem to have a thing there.

With Wyll it is a bit more complicated. Yes, for him I would see the kind of CPTSD I have - parental abuse related. Ulder was not openly abusive, but neither was my mother, and guess what fucked me most up in my childhood, despite experiencing some really bad violence elsewhere.

Shadowheart was abused by Viconia and midwashed and tortured and was forced to kill her fucking pet mouse. Bonus points that a lot of it happened during her childhood. She very much is gonna suffer the consequences.

Lae'zel... Do I really need to say something about her upbringing among the Gith?

Then we have Halsin. We know fairly little about his background, given that he is very coy in talking about it. But his "three years as a drow slave" definitely make it likely that he has developed some form of CPTSD.

And then we have Jaheira and Minsc. For whom just the... Well, look folks, the adventuring lifestyle would logically also leave you with CPTSD of some sort.

Even if you play a Tav who entered the game after having a very untraumatic life... They will spent what has to be at least two months with a tadpole in their head threatening to kill them - while half of Baldur's Gate is trying to do the same. They'll have PTSD after this at the very least, if not CPTSD. (Even though, let's face it, chances are we all gave our Tavs more than enough background trauma to go along with it, right?)

And same goes for so many other characters. The tiefling refugees. Our main villains (especially Gortash and Orin). Cazador. The other vampire spawn (duh). The list goes on.

So, what am I trying to say here?

Well, for once I just want to make sure folks understand that CPTSD is a thing that exists and while being similar to normal PTSD differs in some points. Including the fact that people with CPTSD have a high likelihood to make very rash decisions driven by instable emotional states, that might be harmful to them on the long run.

And mind you. In real life most people with CPTSD have it because either they were bullied for a long time, or were in an abusive relationship of some sort. (Abusive parents, abusive partners, abusive friends/roommates.) But even in those heightened scenarios the game represents for the most part - the issues are gonna be still mainly the same.

[chasing-rabbits]

I’ve been under my new CMHT (community mental health team) for a month now and unfortunately it’s been a little slow for the transfer to really lead to anything. So like I was transferred to their care and they run kinda different to my old CMHT I think they have more resources and are generally a larger unit since they’re in the town and my old CMHT was covering smaller villages. Probably a funding thing tbh.

Long post so putting under read more it’s mostly positive but there is some discussion about struggling with trauma & a potential PTSD/CPTSD diagnosis nothing I’d consider to be triggering but I want to put a small CW just in case any discussion could be upsetting to someone going through shit right now.

Anyways I’m under what they call their TABI?? Idk how its spelled to be honest but they said because I’m a new patient to them I’m under their TABI team which is their like triage team and acute short term treatment team. This includes being assigned a care co-ordinator who manages my case which is nice because they basically manage me as a whole and bring together every team treating me. Like an issue at my old place is I was under a psychiatrist then a therapist and an OT (Occupational therapist) but they didn’t always cross communicate but that’s kinda what the care co-ordinator will help with in the beginning I think I only get her for short term whilst they organise my care and do a full assessment on their end. But it does make things easier because I can just talk to her one person about my care as a whole from all points also she seems really lovely. I had a conversation with her earlier this week and explained some of my concerns and potential issues I’d not discussed with my previous psych for a variety of reasons tbh. Uh but she said it does sound like I could have some PTSD/CPTSD etc etc so she’s going to reach out and see about getting me some kind of assessment/appointment with the relevant member of staff I say staff not psychiatrist because she said there’s someone in the TABI team whose able to make those diagnoses not just my psychiatrist which I’ve yet to be assigned. That is in part because they need to assess me although she said its likely I’d be transferred to what they call the recovery team as I said TABI is also for short term interventions no more than 6months the recovery team is for those who may need longer term care whether it be psych care or therapy or both and more. She is also getting the ball rolling on a psychology assessment/appointment however waiting lists are about a year but once assessed it typically doesn’t take too long to then get the corresponding therapy decided by the outcome of the assessment so that’s not too bad and there’s often long waits for therapy so I expected it tbh I am glad she said it’s only about a year because some places it can be a lot worse.

She’s also reaching out the their OT for an assessment so unfortunately whenever you switch CMHT’s the new one often like to do their own assessments again with things like therapy and OT and such which makes sense it’s been awhile since my first assessment and things might have changed in fact they probably have so I understand that and I’m glad she’s reached out for me to get an assessment as soon as they have availability.

Honestly it just feels so good to be heard regardless of outcomes I just wanted someone to hear what I was saying and feel like they were taking it seriously and not dismissing everything I said. I feel like I might *fingers crossed* get a decent level of treatment from a place of compassion and care although I’m yet to meet my actual psychiatrist or therapist or OT for that matter but so far everyone I have spoken to has been very very lovely. Although talking to her very briefly about some of my symptoms and trauma has meant I’ve been having a lot of thoughts since then about it. I woke up this morning thinking about it all and that’s been hard but I know it’s going to be hard and really fucking triggering to go through all of it but hopefully at the end of it I’ll be better because I can’t therapy without a diagnosis and if I get therapy that’ll be just as triggering all over again but again at the end of it I’ll hopefully have better coping mechanisms and strength to handle it. Idk it just feels like things might be going in a positive direction. I just wish my mind would stop taking me back to past bullshit because it’s so I feel like I’d do anything to just make my mind stop for a second so I don’t have to think or feel any of this and I know that’s a dangerous thought process to go down so idk I’m going to have to try really hard to find other coping mechanisms on my own before I get therapy because I can’t go back to what I used to do when I felt this way, never again. I have enough issues as it is.

[fiore-rosewood9]

14 and 23?

Thank you for the ask kind tumbrl-er. Before I start I would like to mention that anything I say is related to personal experiences in a fandom and there is no right or wrong answer. People come in all shapes and sizes and that also means - Different sets of experience.

TRIGGER WARNING - Mentions of slurs, r*pe, p*dophilia, creepy behavior, mentions of psychological analysis on a character, personal experiences with fandoms and a long rant. If any of these disturb you, please refrain from reading this and skip this post. This is not meant to cause drama, but I had to involve them to explain my point. I also mention sensitive topics like the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 9/11 and the r*pe of Nanking, if you are related to any of these or have someone you know who died during this time, please refrain from reading, because I was extremely emotional and cried a bit while I wrote these, because what I wrote still has an effect on me.

Again, this is not meant to bash/hate on any ship mentioned here.

This is not meant as a personal attack for anyone who ships these. Also this may be a rant, I apologize for writing a whole novel and not a short answer, but I feel passionate about what I write here. This is going to be a really long post, so I do not blame you if you don't read all of it. I am going to mention a lot of things that are not related to the ships, but they do have significance in my mind and are related to my rant. With that out of the way, my answer is under the cut -

14 - Has a fanbase ever made you ship or not ship something? Why?

Yeah, I have been forced and threatened to ship certain things, via texts which made me leave certain fandoms. Hetalia is a cespool simply because I have been in it 8-9 years and can speak confidently about what happened to me. I thought the hate and immature fans in hetalia all left by the time it was 2016-17 but nope, there are still bad apples here and there. I just try to tell them I am not here for childish games and I am not here to debate which ship is the ''best'' since that is what certain people did all the way back in 2013. I am here just to enjoy my self and reblog fan art and headcanons and talk about hetalia and other fandoms and appreciate the manga/anime.

- Ciel x Sebastien (Sebastien is just there for Ciel's soul) I mean he does care for him in some aspect and I think he said something like - "I will always be with you til the day you die, my lord". There is a normal age gap between adults, and then there is lowkey p*dophilia. How old was Ciel anyway ? 12-13? Even though he is a teen, at this age people are not really mature in many aspects. I have collegues who have what you may call ''Sugar daddies'' in the west and let me tell you, they don't really act nice to their sugar babies. Unless it is some sort of consensual sex roleplay and you are living in a fantasy with your partner, most girls and boys I see feel ''trapped'' by their words.

The sugar daddy (In rare cases mummy) exploites them for attention and tends to lash out if the baby looks at their phone and doesn't pay 100 percent attention to them and tries to buy their attention which is simply wrong. Okay, I moved way offtopic, but certain ships kinda remind me of this unhealthy dynamic in a way. I know my opinion isn't worth shit since this is the internet and everyone thinks they're the next new hot thing around here but I just see them as servent and master and more like frenemies where Sebastien would do anything for Ciel, but you see, that is kinda his job. Just like how doctors act professional and it is their job to cure/heal you if you have some sort of pain.

- Izuku Midoriya x Bakugou Katuski - (I was in this fandom for a short time and only watched up to a certain season so please excuse me if I what I say is not accurate, this is also a long rant so you can skip if you want, in the last two paragraphs I explain about the pairing speciffically) So like from what I remember Katsuki is a bully. I really despise this ship, purely because bullying to me is not something cutesy and fun that people do. It makes you wish you kill your self faster because self harm no longer works. There was this weird person on tumbrl that sent me hate through tumbrl and I made a post about them, how I was a ''bad person'' for hating on this ship. I mean, I am allowed to dislike and even hate what I want. It is not you who has went through trauma and has CPTSD is it? In my high school, even though it was an economical one, except learning Economics, Accounting, Finances and other stuff I also got to learn things like Psychology, Ethics, History and Geography.

And each subject is tough, as in - You can't pass high school if you don't know the details. Except the book that we used in school that we learnt our lessons from, we were also made to carry two other books that we used for exercises, and other than that we had books that were by different authors, we had to read, but they didn't lift our grade in any way. So I have learnt psychology and world history for 4 years in high school and I learnt world history and world geography for 3 years in middle school. And now the first year in Uni, I got to learn psychology for year too. They also made us buy 9-10 books by different psychologists and write about them. From what I hear from my americans friends and collegues, they kinda don't teach you world history, it is like unless you know all of Thomas Jefferson's favourite foods you will be failed. I don't know if this is true, but judging by how they teach what Communism and Socialism is, in the american schools, I am kinda losing hope for what americans actually know about the outside world, aka, anything that is not the US and Canada.

I am not a psychologist and I have never studied to be one, but my own problems and the problems of my family and friends made me start reading even before high school in order to self improve as a human being because I have - Fatal flaws. I also have a few mental illnesses whcih have been diagnosed by psychiatrists, but where I live, mental health and the lgbtq+ is extremely shamed. This is why I never tell anyone I go to a psychologist, because people don't understand you and laugh at you and shame you. The lgbtq is harassed and can't marry or adopt children, however, this somehow is not a hatecrime. Which extremely frustrates me since this is against human rights in my book. You can't just harass a person for their sexuality. I may not have a phd in psychology but I naturally tend to help people and listen to their problems. It seems that I also give good advice and help people well, so sometimes in friend groups I am know as the ''heart'' and the ''psychologist''. I say that because I know a lot more than 4-5 articles that I read on psychology today, healthline or verywellmind, while people nowdays read a few articles and call them selves a psychologist. I am not one, but have the skills and knowledge to be one and can spot articles with old outdated information that hasn't been relevant in the past 30 years or so.

But that is the majority of people, who concider it a mental illness and base the lgbtq on what stereotypes they see on TV and what their parents told them. The internet is made for global use and that means that anyone can write all kinds of shit and use it. However there are a lot of problems with this when it comes to psychology and psychologists and psychriatrists. Many people still believe myths and things that were proven to be wrong. For example, in my country the word - Autist/Autistic, can be used as a slur, it is similar to what the Americans have in the - N and R words. And this is extremely upsetting, because while I am not on the spectrum, I don't think anyone should be degraded and be shamed of this label. Autism is a spectrum, but here it is used to signify that someone is slow. They're not slow, their brain just works differently. But that can be used for other illneses too. I think anyone suffering from mental illness deserves the support of family and friends and a normal life. I think anyone who is a decent and kind human being deserves a peaceful life.

So in real life Bakugou x Izuku would be a crap pairing. Because bullies x their victims do not mix well. Bullies in real life are cowards. They're like predators in the jungle. They are not real leaders. They always settle for someone who is clearly weak and vulnerable (This case - Izuku has no quirks and is useless in their world) so being beaten up, emotionally and verbally bullied isn't really fun. On top of that, when a bully develops an unhealthy dynamic, other people of the group, who never oroginally bullied the victim and were neutral or even friends, go and bully the victim, because they can and they will. Usually victims are powerless and telling the teacher and sometimes beating up the bully doesn't really make the bully leave you alone and respect you. And sometimes, you end up in the hospital with a broken leg and an arm and small injuries in your chest because bullies can't handle anyone standing up to them and ruining their status. Bullies have extreme, neurotic fear of being alone, so they find other assholes and bitches like them and attack always people - Who never did anything to them to insult them.

The bullies create it them selves. No one is an easy victim, not the person who wears glasses, not the anorexic girl that sits on the first desk, not the boy in a wheel chair, not the man with a stutter, not the woman covered in scars, no one. It is also a fact that schools profit from bullies since bullies usually have rich parents that think their child is somr sort of angel when in reality their child loves to make others cry and hits them when they don't get what they want. The problem with bullies is that they are hard to stop. Sometimes telling them off works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes punching them works, sometimes it doesn't. Etc. We can't predict which bully is bluffing and which bully is serious and will beat you up. They do not realize or care that they hurt their victims, even if the victim becomes a millionaire, to them, this person will always be inferior weakling that they need to torture psychologically and make them cry. They're sadistic. Bakugou from what I remember became jealous and only stopped bullying Izuku when he became ''strong'' that means strong physically. And for boys, it is generally easier, you hit the gym and no one bullies you. But what if you are a girl? I don't see girls being more respected or feared for being muscular. It is kinda like the jock x nerd. Cute in theory, but in reality it is beyond abusive. Even if the victims kill them selves bullies do not care. They just move on to another victim and are proud that they broke someone and are not as weak as them.

America x England - (OOOOH BOY, HOW MUCH DO I WANT TO BE CANCELED, HAHA) Well, as someone who has been 9 years in this fandom, I have a long history with this pairing. I do not know if I ever explained why do I hate it so much? I have a long and complicated history with it. This where my inner historian comes in. My uncle is a professor in history, but not in our city and we are not very close but I was always interested in history, but now I am a bit skeptical when it comes to history, because you never know how someone can twist it since history is written by the winners. Whatever I say in this post, is not meant to cause drama or offend anyone. From now on I am going to use, vulgar language and this may not be suitable for some readers

This is not meant to be hateful towards people who ship it, but I hate this ship, with passion. This has to be the worst ship, in the fandom history, ever. If you want, feel free to block me if that triggers you. I don't know from where to begin, since I am going to get canceled if I speak my own personal truth and my experiences. I have read the manga when I was 13-14 and have matured since then. The hetalia fandom in the past was more different than in 2021. So like there were ship wars, fan arts, roleplaying, everyone cosplayed hetalia and homestuck since they were the biggest fandoms, Carley Rae Japsean's song Call me maybe was blasting on the radio, Gagnam style was the shit and life was good. I was young, naive, full of hope and looking for fandoms to join in, since it is was a relativly new concept for me. I did not know what these cutesy boys I saw on deviant art were so I decided to scroll down through the comments to see what it was, and I read the name - Hetalia. If you then pay me one million dollars/euro and tell me that Hetalia is going to be my favourite anime and the fandom I stay the longest in - I would have rejected the money and not believe you. Pshht, Hetalia? What does this anime about personification of countries has that the other animes don't? Well, to that question, I can't answer and still ask my self.

When I first came into the fandom I only knew about it from deviant art and from a site called - Shamchat. This site no longer exists and has a site specifically made to fill the hole of it. I roleplayed and I think my happiest years in the fandom were 2013-2015. Those were the years where I met really, really kind fans. It is like everything else went downhill and the kind and sweet fans left one by one. And I was just left with hateful immature tweens and teens who only cared about their OTP and didn't care about other fans's emotions. I apologize if this sounds like a pitful story and I am pitying me, I did not mean it to sound it this way, or as a whining. I do not like whining.

They also seem strangely neurotic if you ask them why they ship UsUk. I can perfectly tell you why I ship anything without being mean. They just straight up insult you and send you passive agressive smileys - : ) - like this and never explain why they insult you, they just curse you. I do not understand why you make America to be the top? When he is clearly a power bottom?????? I mean, if you ever look through canon manga England and him as a country in a history book you wouldn't think he is a ''uke'' (I really hate the little girls who use japanese and think they kniw the language just cause they watched the anime and think they're quirky if they saw kawaii out loud). In fanfiction he is not fleshed out, he always seemed to blush and say baka and be a boring character over all. While Alfred is this dumb himbo/bimbo character that can't put 2+2 and laughs at everything like a small child. He is 19, for fuck's sake.

He is still a child and people can mature up until 25-26. But these ages are not real ages. For example Germany is 20, even though Bismarck unites Germany in....1871 if I remember correctly? Don't quote me on that and the americans have freed them selves in 1776. So technically Germany as we know it, should be younger but isn't. And they're both still awkward babies. America doesn't have a concrete religion but from what I know, Christianity seems to the most popular religion there as for now. I don't know if Alfred (Even though he is fictional) would identify as a catholic, protestant, puritan or some other stuff but he is awkward, he has a boyish charm that Ludwig does not have. So I can't imagine these good bois being tops with experience. Usually tops/doms come with lots of experience behind their back, or at least this is what people say whom I know who are also part of the lgbtq and bdsm community. Alfred just doesn't have the vibe of a top, he is more of a switch to me, or at best a power bottom. Ludwig has a dom/top vibes but he is extremely awkward in all senses of the word. America doesn't have a concrete religion but from what I know, Christianity seems to the most popular religion there as for now. I don't know if Alfred (Even though he is fictional) would identify as a catholic, protestant, puritan or some other stuff but he is awkward, he has a boyish charm that Ludwig does not have.

So UsUk was forced down my throat ever since I can remember, I have been insulted, threatened and took 2-3 hiatuses purely due to bullying. I Really HATE, HATE, HATE - feminine Arthur. I do not know why this is the fandom's fetish, or at least used to be even though some fans still draw him that way. I really love art, I used to draw and still do. I went to classes through out almost all of my life and I know my proportions. Whether you look through normal fan art or hentai manga (Arthur has the most porn idk how or why) he always has these weird proportions.....of a malnorished tween girl. There is some porn of him either as a child (A toddler by the judgement of his body) or of Alfred as a child, and they fuck. How is this supposed to be hot for anybody? I also remember (Which is why I left amino) on amino that users were extremely childish and lied about their age. Like no, you're not 17 and a half and are ''too mature for your age'' you are 17 and that still is a minor in my book. Also in one of the translated hentai comics there is this...idk how to describe it, there is this shaving scene where Alfred becomes a man and has his first boner from what I remember, the artstyle is great, but the scene can be described a child grooming. England lies to America how boners are a horrible disease and it can only be cured if he stays next to him. He then goes to France who tells him that boners are healthy and normal at this age and is upset at England for lying to him. Then when he frees him self America smiles, laughs and pisses on top of England I think he later fucks him. Like people can try to force their weak argument over england being a uke somehow now, but Pirate England is a top, how in the hell would anyone think he is a bottom?

UsUkers also love weird fetishes and force them down your throat, and not only shame you when you don't ship the ship, they shame you when you don't have their fetish. So like people go to my dms and ask me if I want to MPREG with Arthur beign the ''woman'' in the relationships, and golden showers. I also remember leaders acting unprofessionaly towards me. Some user was sending me child porn and when I told one of the leaders they just told me it was my problem and to fuck off. It deeply upset me so I took a hiatus and when I returned I was just met with another shit wave. I think I left last year because some girl was harassing me and constantly wanted attention. I told her to leave me alone since I have lectures and can't speak to her right now and she told her friend I was ''mean'' to her and her friend started insulting me in every comment on every posted I posted, be it fan art or fanfiction I wrote. Also they can't roleplay properly. I feel like I am in 4th grade where children used to insult each other. Like what stupid (probably american white girl) thing going to tell me this time ? Hmmmm option A - Alfred says that Arthur has horrible teeth, option B - Alfred says that Arthur has horrible cooking, option C - asks for sex and wants to impregnate him even though they are both males, it seems to be quite jokes among them. I get that americans want to see their country as this buff, strong, brave, macho type, but real people have strengths and flaws. In my opinion no country is dumb, they all look after their personal interest and empires love to exploit others, it is just how it is. They basically use english stereotypes and call it a day.

Before leaving I went to another ''better'' amino where I blocked one of the leaders. I don't remember if their name was Alfie or something else but it was something like that. And another leader asked me to unblock her, mind you. I was hesitant but I did. I usually do not block people unless they share content that causes negative reaction out of me - panic attack/rise in adrenaline/shaking/desire to puke/anxiety/etc or they have been a total asshole/bitch to me in the past. So I don't have the screenshots, since I changed my phone a few months ago. I used a Lenovo one and now I have an old huawei I used to have since we don't have money for a new one. So I saved the screenshots where they started saying how Francis is a rapist and I thought we passed this phase. I told the original leader and they all seem to not speak english well but she told me that this leader thought I was mean. I mean...she joked about rape, am I supposed to text - XD LMAO YEAH THE R WORD IS FUCKING FUN, YEAH DUDE YEAH! XD LOL LMAO. From what I see, if I have explain his behavior, he just has a high libido, which is nothing to be ashamed about.

There are also different types of attraction - Aesthetic, Romantic, Sexual. And he appreciates anything beautiful. He also says that ''You can't force love on anyone'' and is generally a really sweet guy. Also from what I see he copes with his loneliness by having casual sex while Arthur copes by abusing alcohol. People cope with loneliness in different ways, for him LOVE is important and he craves intimacy. He is suggestive and says sex jokes which is relateable. He also has moments of walking around naked, and while that may be perverted, far more people have done more perverted things than him. Also Greece and Turkey have a lot more sex than France has ever had. I don't know if it is canon or fanon but I read somewhere that Greece loves sex without a condom since it excites him. France is perverted but so are many other people, if a person is assertive towards such personality he will respect the other person's wishes and not force the issue, because he understands the concept of boundaries. It seems that some fans are either too young or too stupid to understand what is common sense and boundaries. Some couples in real life suffer from mismatch in their libido which is why they go to a couple therapist and ask how they can revive their sex life.

He is not a creep. I have met old men stalking me around after school and I have had a guy at a bar putting something in my drink not knowing that I saw everything so I just left. Real creeps do not understand the concept of boundaries and the fact that people are not their sexual slaves, they crave power and dominance and love ruining people's lives, it doesn't matter who their target it, as long as they are depressed and on their knees crying and shaking in pain and fear. So yeah, rape is not something to laugh at but it seems the shitty girls that got into hetalia think it is peak comedy. With Antonio it is different, I do not like throwing the term - P*dophile around because that is a harsh accusiation but from what I remember from manga...didn't he try to steal North Italy who was a child...to marry him? He never wanted South Italy but got used to him at some point, so I am sorry for ruining all of the Spamano shippers's fantasies. He also raised him. Which brings me to the second point.

England raised America. Period. It is canon, it is in the manga, he found him as a child. England loves America because he is the first thing that did not hate him, for him. Europe in the past hated England, this is why France jokes that he is the - black sheep of Europe. He was abused by his brothers, especially Scotland and threw things at him and chased him away. Scotland is not only an abusive alcoholic though. He is more complex and loves his brother in his own way but historically England was not kind at all to Scotland. So these people were telling me that I am a wh*re because I don't ship their precious UsUk? Well guess what honey, England isn't a useless girly bottom, America is neither a top, nor a dumb guy and England most likely changed his diapers. Also why would America blow his revolution if he wanted to be free? I mean England taxed the hell out of him and was a bit of a narcissitic asshole, so why shouldn't America want to be free from tyrany?

Also for people who bring the - BUT FIORE, ENGLAND KILLED JEANNE'DARC SO THAT MEANS FRANCE SHOULD HATE HIM, YOU'RE A HYPOCRITE! - well hun, France held a grudge for centuries until he got even by helping America with Spain and Prussia to free him self from England's grasp. America was the only thing that didn't hate him because he didn't know him. He was an alone child and he finally had someone to take care of him and listen to him talk, that wasn't a human, that didn't die (Davie) and England is an introvert but he has many issues which is why to him the loss of America hurt so much. Because everyone else hated him, or at least in his mind it looked that way. Portugal was always his friend and in a rare case lover and France had a love/friend/hate relationship with him. People can make the argument that France took care of him but France was probably around 12 in human years and England looks to be around 10 when he wore that blue dress of his and when England had a bow and green cloak and shaggy long blonde hair. France still cuts off his hair to this day. While England was in his late teens 17-8 when he found America who was clearly around 5-6. Their pairing doesn't make sense from a psychological point. So I would love to not have any usuk shit in my feed. I have enough abusive people in my life who treat me like a punching bag, I don't need to get upset online too.

Alfred looks 5-6 years of age and believe it or not some children piss them selves even to the age of 10. Some have medical problems but that is not an issue for now. I have been a nanny. I have taken care of children of all ages, and they're telling me? That I should ship a ship where some guy changed another's diapers but the other guy grew up too quickly and now they are dating? IN WHAT WORLD, I REPEAT IN WHAT WORLD?Does that mean I should feel some sort of sexual attraction and would like to bang children I took care of, because they went to the gym and have what society conciders the perfect body? I guess in their mind I should. In reality somewhat every country is related to hetalia so the boundary between what is incest or not is vague. But even when usukers bring the - BUT THEY ARE NOT BLOOD RELATED? - so what, incest is still taboo and some say that since they don't have blood relation it is not incest, but this is why stepbro/sis memes are so prevelent. Since it is a taboo and taboos get some people excited sexually. Whether they are blood related or not is out of the question, Arthur did take care of him as a child.

This is not meant to cause the old FRUK VS USUK wars, but in my experience USUK fans are extremely harsh and cold, at least to anyone who doesn't ship their precious ship. It is like they can't stand anyone who simply objectivly says - I do not like this ship. Bruv, do you know how many other ships I don't like in other fandoms, and no one has given me shit or threatened to hack my computer and send people to beat me up, simply because I DON'T SHIP USUK? maaaan-Let's not forget that these hypocrites also spread lies and said that ''Himaruya said that UsUk is canon'' and there was this black and white fan art that rolled around Twitter, Facebook and other social media for a while and people believe it. I think Hetafacts or some other youtuber debunked that it was nothing but a pure lie. It should not matter what ship is canon, what should matter more is fans being civil and kind to another but no, let's insult other pairings and make people hate ships they didn't originally hate just because.

Here is another ship I don't like - Russia x China. Also another ship - Russia x Prussia, also another ship Russia x Lithuania, or Russia (Romantically) x Latvia, or Prussia x Liechtenstein (Romantically). I even met one person who shipped Sealand x England lol or England x Seychelles x France or Belarus x Liechtenstein (Romantically) I dislike all of these ships. Do you see the word hate anywhere? No, because I don't hate them? Do you know why? Well no one told me - ''I hope you die raped in shit'' and told me that I am ''r*tarded'' in my comment section on youtube because I said that I do not care about certain ships. You see I used to feel this way about UsUk too. It was meh, I don't care, I see them as father and son, because England literally raised him. Also England is proven to be a horrible neglectful father and a workholic and alcholic. This is the reason why Sealand is taken care of by Sweden and Finland.

I always saw him this way so I don't know how the new fandom just started seeing him as the gremlin that he is when he was always a fucking old grandpa gremlin, not a soft uwu useless femboy that loves sex and screams BAKA every 3 seconds and blushes for no apperent reason whatsoever. I have many things that I don't ship. For example I feel conflicted towards pairings like - China x Japan or Japan x America because the r*pe of nanking is a thing and Japan denies and while Japan may have attacked America, americans kinda rationalize the two bombs and laugh at it while if anyone mentions 9/11 they freak out. So they can joke about other countries's misfortune but if it theirs - NO,NO,NO! I think global issues should be adressed in hetalia and people should make vent/rant art. If you are an indigenous person and a white guy comes to you and asks why you wear normal clothes and he says that indigenous people only wear feathers and all, this is why we need to speak to children about racism. Or being told that being latino/a makes you ''Inferior'' somehow (IT DOESN'T), or you're black and you get told by a white person how you should go back to your home land ''with the bananas''. I can joke about my own country's problems but it feels extremely offensive if the country that did the crime (R*pe, destruction of religious monuments, statues of popular poets from my country, more r*pe, stealing boys and babies and forcing other religion on them so they can kill and r*pe their own mothers and sisters. )I do not blame their descendents for what their grandpas did to us, what I can't stand is the superiority complex they have and how they insult this country and speak in their own language like we don't understand them and pretend like nothing happened, which is why I hate a certain hetalia country with passion.

It really sucks how due to Covid the hate against asians has risen, I heard from my favourite youtubers how certain people harassed them and hurt them for ''spreading covid'' or something. Well this just horrible and we really need to re-think how we treat people who were not at fault for a fucking global pandemic. I don't know where Yao Wang would stand, since he is a fictional country but unless somebody projects their homophobia and xenophobia through roleplay or art and send me hate art, I don't really care who they are as long as their are respectful. I can't stand usuk, and I can't stand the fans. I try to block every account that has this content which sucks ass since they look like cool people but no, it has to be fucking ew ugh usuk they draw. I sometimes feel like a bitch for blocking them since they're not the same fans that have insulted, threatened and harassed me but I would like to not blow my chances and risk ever talking to them. If you want to, you can call me a hater, a basher or anything, I don't care.

In a way everyone in hetalia is related but lets say that I do not have concrete hate over this ship but the serial bullying I received from fans over the years. Which is why I ship things like Seychelles x Iceland or Hong Kong x Iceland and I can't choose. Usually when UsUk fans ''defend'' their ship they have two arguments - It is cute and - the revolutinary war and how much england missed him. Two people may look cute together but would their emotional maturity and personalities match? These are important questions, which is why for me Gerita personalitywise, matches but the emotional maturity gap is way too much. For UsUk America lacks basic emotional maturity, raises his tone, cuts off people when they speak, weird obsession about being a hero and a tiny bit of narcissism here and there, he overly trusts him self which can cause as much problems as someone who doubts them selves. England is in another place mentally is honestly much better off with anyone else that is not America or Canada. Portugal, Spain, France, Russia, Japan,etc. America also has more developed friendships with countries like Russia, France, Siciliy and probably Japan and Vietnam. I think he can date Lithuania for me their dynamic is so wholesome and pure and everything click together. Russia also works but some people are put off by it due to the cold war. RusAme/UkFr is much more than just love/hate relationship, I don't know why people have the impression that they constantly fight and make up. Normal couples don't do that. Whether it is incest or not it is debatealbe. I have seen dynamics like theirs and let tell you that these people always ended up divorced.

I will share some quotes from people on different social medias I have found that describe it better than me -

Quote number 1 - from fanpop

"USUK is actually one of my most hated anime pairings followed by Spamano a few places behind for the same reason. The thought of raising a child as a son/brother only to bang him when he's older is nothing but disgusting and makes England seem like a pedophile for "falling in love" with the child he adopted and raised. I honestly can't understand why so many people insist that America and England aren't brothers and that the pairing isn't incest when Himaruya, the anime director and characters in Hetalia have confirmed that America and England are indeed brothers. Some USUK fans claim that America's independence makes them non-siblings. That's just ridiculous. Even if America would say "I don't want to be your brother anymore" directly to England, it still won't make any difference and it certainly doesn't change the fact that America was adopted and raised by England. If the USUK fans want to ship this pairing, it's fine, but denying that the pairing is incest is just annoying. It makes it seem like they think incest is gross, but desperately try to deny that USUK is incest only to continue shipping it or to keep telling themselves that USUK will be canon, which will never happen just like (unfortunately) every other Hetalia pairing except (possibly) AusHun.''

Quote number 2- from deviant art

''t's this reasoning that made me think back to all the Journal reads, essays and editorials many of the Anti UsUk fans write about why they hate the pairing. They usually mention about the pairing being incest, pedophilia and/or not cannon. While all of those might be true, I think there's more reasoning to why UsUk usually never works. It isn't to say those shouldn't be mentioned, because they should be, and I will mention them. First off, incest. Yes, UsUk is incest, but not because they share blood, but because they're BROTHERS. The fact that England adopted America should not be anyone's excuse for why it's not considered incest. Incest means sexual relations between people classed as being too closely related to marry each other. The definition of related is belonging to the same family, group, or type. Neither of these say anything about sharing blood, or having to be born from the mother's womb. If your parents divorced, and your father married another woman, who becomes your mother, she would be considered related to you, since you both belong in the same family. America and England are brothers, they're family, they belong in the same family, and even share the same family name (Don't believe me? Britain's full name is United Kingdom of Great Britain, just like America's full name is United States of America, which was declared by Acts of Union in 1707 before the Revolutionary War. Coincidence? I think not 📷). No, I do not count their human names, since they're mainly names used for the fanbase to use. Now, for pedophilia, that's the one that can be questioned. On one hand, if England and America are shipped when both are adults, then it shouldn't be considered pedophilia. On the other hand, they are about 800-700 years apart. Though, the same could be said with America and other countries like Japan, Ukraine and Belarus. While America may not be the youngest country, technically speaking, he's certainly the youngest most powerful country. So, if anyone in the fandom is going to pair up America with anyone, male or female, that country is most likely going to be thousands of years older than him. So, do I consider UsUk pedophilia? Well... not if America is already a grown adult. So, unless there are fanart or fan fictions with England being sexual or flirty with kid or youth America, pedophilia isn't really the big issue (especially since I haven't seen pictures or fanart of England being sexual or flirty with kid America, and are perhaps the only brotherly pictures and/or fan fictions I can find of England and America). Being that everyone knows that UsUk is CERTAINLY not cannon, I want to go more deep into why I feel UsUk doesn't work. Let's set aside the fact that it is incest, and look at this pairing from a realistic standpoint. I want to start from the bottom up, which would be the back story of how England's and America's relationship started. Why is this relationship so memorable, and considered adorable? Why does it work so well? To put it simply, the relationship between England and America is very relatable. They both reminded me of my two brothers, and my dad and my uncle. It's the story of the little brother, who looked up to the older brother as the greatest thing on earth; the most perfect person in the world. He could never think of anyone else that could be compared to his older brother. Then, suddenly, that little brother grows up and realizes that his older brother is a compete jerk, or isn't as perfect as he originally thought. Usually, this is hard for any little brother to grasp, and, once he does, the relationship between him and his older brother starts to friction. They no longer share the same relationship they once had. Little brothers can relate to America in trying to grasp and understand that his older brother wasn't the big, perfect person he once thought, when he says, “you used to be so big.” At the same time, older brothers can relate to England in losing the innocent little brother that thought he was the world, then having to watch him grow up, and turn into a complete

jerk himself, or lose his innocence. It isn't that England never saw any flaws in America, even as a little kid, but it's hard for him to watch those innocence and naiveness suddenly flushed down the toilet. Now, America is surpassing England, and England now needs America to help him at times. From what I've seen from my brothers and uncle, it's very hard for an older brother to admit he needs his little brother's help, that there might be things his little brother knows more than him, and to actually call or go to little brother for help. This is continually seen with England and America during World War 2 where America volunteers to help, and England continually refuses, but yet seems to need the help (this is especially seen in the Blitz series). When anyone takes these two characters, whose relationship represents and older and younger brother of our generation, then turns it into a gay relationship, it completely ruins the amazing buildup that Hidekazu Himaruya was intentionally going for. It's not that gay relationships are not relatable, but the one that's made in the UsUk fandom isn't something that gay couples can relate to. Turning something that was never intended to be a gay relationship into one is actually the reason why there are gay men and women that dislike yaoi. It's not only a misrepresentation of England and America, and their relationship, but it's a misrepresentation of gay relationships in general. That's mainly where it boils down to why I dislike UsUk. Yes, homosexuality is one of those reasons, being that homosexuality was VERY looked down upon back during World War 2, especially during the colonial days (if you were caught in the act of homosexuality, you'd most likely be kicked out of the city and, if not, be beaten by countless cowboys, then killed, and those cowboys would get away with it, not being punished for said act even if they were caught). More than likely, England and America were homophobic back during those days, since many Americans and Englishmen were completely against homosexuality. It wasn't until around the Cold War, or during the 1960's, when the world started changing their viewpoints. Though, with that aside, UsUk, to me, just can't work with the back story and buildup of the show. Though, the same should be said for many yaoi fandoms in general. Many of them just don't work with the cannon buildup set for the two male characters. If people try to pair America and England up, keeping the cannon story line of their relationship, it comes out as unrealistic, and a misrepresentation of gay relationships, the relationship between England and America, and history in general. It isn't to say that nobody should write UsUk. In my opinion, whatever shipping you want to use is completely up to you. Though, if you want to write a UsUk fan fiction, it needs to not ruin the cannon relationship buildup set for England and America. In other words, I don't want a UsUk of any type to use the same cannon back story from the Hetalia series, otherwise it just becomes very unrelatable, and ruins the intended relationship buildup between England and America as older and younger brother. Anyways, those are my thoughts on UsUk, and why I don't like the pairing in general. You can agree or disagree, but I wanted to get my thoughts out. You can let me know in the comments about your thoughts on UsUk. I'm interested in knowing what your thoughts on the fandom, whether you're a UsUk fan or completely against the pairing, like me.''

23 - Have you ever had a ship become canon, but you didn’t like how it was portrayed?

- Korra x Asami (It looks rushed and I think Asami deserves better, in my eyes Korra constantly changed relationships and has immaturity issues, I watched the show a long time ago tho)

- Light x Misa (Misa deserved someone who cared for her)

- Erza x Jellal/Gerard (Erza deserved better, the guy looks like he is an extra or made of plastic)

- Ban x Elaine (I really dislike this ship, I read some articles about Japan and I do not know if this real/legit and please excuse me if I spread misinformation, but from what I read, some people said that Japan has p*dophilia problems. Certain mangaka or their word for the comic/manga artist, put loli characters on purpose to please a certain fanbase that likes this type of content. I look like a loli somewhat because I have small frame while other girls matured on body way too fast, I remained skin and bones up until the age of 19, after that I somehow started to gain some weight on my legs but that doesn't mean I am still not short and skinny on my upper body. Old creepy men, asking where you live and asking you sexual intimate questions when you just want to buy you self some dinner after school, isn't my idea of fun. Which is why - 100000 years but has the body of a loli is bullshit. There are older women who have smaller bodies but no matter how young you look, every human being starts developing wrinkles and hair falling at some point in their life. They may be small, but they surely don't look like lolis.

[oh-lali-lali-lali-lalipop]

@mysteriousdbzgt: Hi oh-lali-lali-lali-lalipop! Thank you for your ask. First of all, thanks for asking this question here on my personal (and also for the follow over on t&bftw, welcome aboard! :D) I think you can probably tell from here, that I’m a huge supporter of them becoming romantically involved lol I don’t shy about that here, but I like to present a more neutral stance over on my news dedicated blog, to not influence others of my personal opinions. With regards to the new season, as much as I would be supportive of it, I unfortunately highly doubt that they would become “official” in S2 or anything in the future, but will remain extremely dedicated and attentive to one another, regardless of their constant bickering. The creators of the show are more than aware of the popularity of the “couple”, being constantly popular at doujinshi events and the continuous amounts of merchandise that they bring out, which regularly focuses on the main duo rather than all of the Heroes all the time. The fandom is primarily dominated by women, when originally the show was supposed to target men and “salarymen”, but attracted a completely different demographic that they hadn’t anticipated. I can only think that’s mainly because of the appeal of K&B. Also not helped by some of the staff’s, let’s just say, “unfiltered” thoughts when they discuss about K & B in older interviews, centering around “love” and other similar notions. I think they still want to keep this series aimed towards a male demographic, even if the results don’t line up as they expect. But highly ironically, it’s what makes the show successful, so I doubt they would want to change how they portray Kotetsu and Barnaby’s relationship. Personally I would be absolutely over the moon if they did become “official”, because they’re just perfect for one another (hehe) and it could just break so many standard conventions/boundaries on how media portrays same-sex relationships, if done appropriately, and not be labelled with any genre tags like “BL”, “yaoi” or anything similar, and still simply just be a “drama”, “superhero” tale, with the two main males eventually getting together but not make a big song and dance about it. If we want to normalise LGBT relationships within our media and what we consume, then we need to drop these tags and portray them in a healthy manner, which I think the show does well between them both. I believe that the staff have the talent to pull it off, they just need to be cautious on how they do it. Like you said, how FE is presented in the show which such great self confidence about themselves and who they are, really shows that they can write this. Also T&B’s spiritual successor show, Double Decker (who had a lot of the same staff) tackles some LGBT themes pretty well, so they could absolutely do it. But yeah, I don’t think they’ll become “official” unfortunately. But if anything, I anticipate that KxB will most likely be working even closer together in S2, so they’ll be more in tune with one another, and possibly open up even more to each other than they did before. Hopefully they’ll be over the huge feuds and split apart phase, which The Rising focused on (they’ll still bicker all the time, but that’s just how they are), so we can see just how far their relationship has come and changed for the better. Anyway this is probably way too long (sorry), but always interested to hear your thoughts too! :)  

Heya! Before I start I just wanna say thank you so much for taking the time to give me such a thorough reply, it is incredibly well thought out and written! I also want to say I am so freaking sorry you had to type out my monstrosity of a name (seriously didn’t think about that when making the joke lol). Oh, and I’m equally sorry for the formatting of the reply... really had no clue how to go about it, so I just defaulted to going about it the roleplayer way haha. Anyways, for starters, I think I should say that I actually agree with you a lot. You see, logically I think it feels highly unlikely they’d make them “official” in the new season. I’m not sure if I feel like it’s unlikely because I, someone who’s in the LGBTQ community, am a pessimist (aka, I’m negative regardless of proof) who is use to companies not delivering on it/assume companies won’t deliver on it.... or if I’m genuinely, but unconsciously, picking up on Sunrise’s stance of “not gonna happen”. Despite all that I still feel stupidly hopeful about it (y’know, heart louder than the mind and all that jazz)... and I guess for the sake of the discussion I’ll break down why! lol So, I got into the fandom.... around the time of The Rising, I think, so anywhere from 2014 to 2015. I instantly fell in love with it all, but I did end up falling out of the loop for awhile (being a teenager and all that). Recently (recently being that I finished S1 on Friday, watched The Rising on Sunday, and now I’m here lol) I got back into it and.... wow, a lot of it is the same, and.... at the same time it felt like I had so much more to process. It’s still as amazing as ever, if not even more so, and just like with everything else I love with my entire being I started to analyze it and read into it (maybe a little bit too much so lol).  In all honesty, KxB seriously stood out even more so than it did last time for me (I don’t know if it’s because I’m now accepting of my sexuality or what) and while it’s not actually the best part of the series to me (God, Barnaby’s arc means so much to me what with me struggling with cPTSD, but that story is best left on my RP blog) I do have to admit that the pairing is... incredibly meaningful, and beautiful. Moving for me, really.  I guess the following observations, and hopeful thinking that came after it, could be deduced to me just wearing shipper goggles, but considering my habit of over analyzing and breaking things down... I do try to make predictions and opinions logically, and with that in mind it’s why I’m so stuck on the “hopeful thinking”, since a tiny bit of logical thinking is fueling it. Tiger & Bunny is about human relationships, really. For a show focusing on NEXTs... it’s really about humanity, corruption, society, relationships... and KxB all along the first season is written as an undertone, like a slow burn (which is entirely fitting, and seriously makes any relationship better), which fits because the first season is, in actuality, not focused on that (the plot being bigger than we can see and all that). In the end, having rewatched it, I also noticed how, really, the undertone is written in such a way that.... it feels like Barnaby is the one with the “crush” (or is the first one to realize it) which... kinda fits with the old statements from the crew. Kotetsu the forever oblivious one who hasn’t had an epiphany yet (although if I’m being honest, The Rising seems to have this “side-plot” feeling of Kotetsu having the epiphany when he realizes what he’s lost, which is what I meant by the flow of the series somewhat feels like it’s building towards it)...  .... There’s also the whole “leaving it to interpretation thing” they said back then. Which, I have to agree with some other people that it feels like it’s just a way of saying “it’s romantic but we don’t want to take that risk”.... and that was back around 2011. It’ll have been decade since then when S2 is released, and, while a decade is just a decade, a lot has changed on a societal basis since then. Even during this decade long gap Sunrise has become more bold with their representation, whether it be Double Decker! or The Rising.... almost like they’re testing the waters...  and what better way to champion representation than to make two main characters the representation? This franchise is... so human in it’s story, and the meaning doing such a thing would have for so many people... in a way, I think out ways some of the risks. I feel like the build up is there, the want is there (tbh seeing posts on tumblr of people talking about how they hope they’ll get a kiss in S2 or something “official” like that also fueled this)... it just depends on whether they’ll feel afraid or not. Which is, really, why I asked for your opinion. You do such good work at trying to bridge the gap between the Japanese fandom/Sunrise and the English speaking community (which, btw, you are amazing at, I can’t thank you enough for the work you do), and I knew you’d be more informed on Sunrise’s attitude and statements, as well as the general opinions and depositions of the Japanese fans. In the end, I can “read into” things all I want, but it won’t matter if you can’t understand the one who pulls the strings... and because of that I wanted to know your opinion.  I’m so so sorry this got so long!! I’m really horrible at summarizing myself, so this turned into a major ramble.... I’m gonna wrap it up now before this turns into a novel haha. Again, thank you so much for responding to my question and for being open to discussing it, it means so much! I truly respect your opinion, since it helps me clear my own thoughts, as well as gives me a dose of reality so I don’t get my hopes up too much... I guess in the end though, a part of me is going to continue to think that they just might have the heart to do it, irregardless lol. I look forwards to seeing what you have to say about what I’ve written here!

[traumatized-motherfuckers]

CPTSD relationship patterns on repeat

Listen wherever you stream, search “complex trauma” and subscribe. Or, find episodes, blog posts, and a private support community at t-mfrs.com

.............................................................................................................................

Things I’ve gotten good at throughout this Trauma journey:

Seeing connections between where I’m from and where I am

Thinking for the first time about where I’m going

Letting myself have emotions

Letting those emotions go

Redirecting my energy and attention away from ruminating

Being accountable for my own feelings

Being accountable for times of being a shithead

Listening and validating other humans

Listening and validating myself

Recognizing what circumstances do/don’t work for me

Realizing how my codependency plays with relationships

Letting go of self-hate inner critic talk

Reframing events with reasonable views

Accepting myself, even when I first want to thrash myself

Semi-consistently caring for myself

Setting realistic boundaries and goals

Sleeping

Things I’m still shitty at:

Letting my overwhelm skew reality

Anxious self-slave-driving

Being a snarky turd when my head is overloaded

Taking on other people’s energies and emotions

Trusting myself in all areas of life

Forming healthy relationships.

Okay, it’s that last one that has me most perpetually fighting feelings of panic and doom.

This seems like an apt way to kick off the new year. I think a lot of us have questions about relationships and would like to improve our operations in 2021. I can also tell you, this one is extremely appropriate looking back at the last year of my life.

One of the biggest lessons I've learned in the past few spins around the sun has been how romance does - and definitely doesn't - fit into my life. I think 2020 was particularly packed full of important lectures and pop quizzes, many of which I failed. It felt like knowing that the correct answer was C, but finding my hand filling in the circle for A every time, anyways.

This is a terrible ideaaaa... and I'm doing it. Pause for about 2 months. Now I'm upset that it was a terrible idea.

Yeah, it's been great. But I have no one to blame but myself. Because as much as I've worked on this trauma management life of mine, I haven't done a good job of working on the relationship aspect of it. I've let my usual patterns dominate. And that's what needs to be examined today.

I mean. Can someone tell me about healthy relationships in functional terms? What IS that even?

Look, I’m not hoping that someone will pop up and share some, “mutual respect, good communication, trust, support, care, similar goals, similar beliefs…” sort of shit. I fucking KNOW about the idealistic, flowery terms that all the light-hearted couples counselors recommend establishing for a happy relationship. I get it.

I’m not ignorant when it comes to the ways humans should interact. I’ve had enough experience with friendships and relationships, alike, to understand the basics of person-to-person interactions. I know I talk about myself like I’ve been a feral child locked in a cage for 20 years, but the truth is that if you met me on the streets I’d probably seem like a normal, well-adapted, personable human being. That Leo Ascendant component of my personality tricks people into actually thinking I’m an extrovert who wants attention. (Hilarious, explains a lot of comments I’ve gotten in my past)

Nah, I’m not asking for the trite descriptions of a healthy partnership that everyone who’s ever been friends on a basic girl’s Facebook has seen before in cursive writing on top of a washed-out pink-tinted field. Those are empty sounding words that I don’t believe most couples manage to put into action, no matter how many selfies they take together or labradoodles they adopt.

For me, Fuckers, the mystery isn’t, “in a fairytale world, how do two humans interact to have a lifelong bliss factory?” Respect, trust, appreciation, mutual understanding… blah blah blah. What the fuck ever.

The real question is how.

And, shit, let me just be honest with all of you - not just the Patrons who’ve already heard my personal bitching - it’s on my mind because I did a thing I definitely should not have… recently, I got into a new romantic relationship that I definitely was not looking for. I’ll spare you all the details today, but know that I’ve entered it kicking and screaming, and it’s caused me a lot of grief already.

Let the life shittery begin! Can’t wait to be destroyed.

Today, I want to bring this personal fire burning in my gut into the podcast. Motherfuck me, if it hasn’t become difficult to ignore… plus, I know that a lot of us Traumatized folks are in a similar boat when it comes to relationship confusion, unhealth, and destruction. So let’s just count the ways that I have no idea how to do this right and I’m destined to be let down by my poor choices.

This time around, I'm bringing you a list of all the ways I tend to fuck things up with other humans. In part, due to Complex Trauma. In other part, probably due to my own personal shortcomings. Listed in no particular order. On a later date, I'm going to be revisiting a lot of these patterns as I examine how early life set a lot of us up for a lot of abuse acceptance in greater detail. Stick around for those continuations on romantic disaster, if this sounds like you, too.

I'm talking about:

Partner choice: Musicians, narcissists, and addicts

Emotional codependency

Mistrust

… That turns into willful blind belief of their words

Inadequacy

Parenting analogues

Authority figures & disappointment

Misdirected commitment

Learned helplessness

Partner choice: Musicians, narcissists and addicts

Who has bad taste in partners? Over and over and over again? It’s me! And probably a lot of you.

Maybe that’s not fair. Maybe they’ve been wonderful guys who just didn’t mesh well with my inner or outer world… but I can tell you, there have been some similarities, and they don’t bode well for a happy future together.

You know me by now. Difficulty connecting with “normal” humans, no interest in small talk, a huge fan of deep emotional honesty, a bit gritty and assholeish, tends to be repelled by anything too widely embraced by the general public, definitely comes with a difficult past, fears of the future, and ongoing challenges in the present.

So, who do you think I get along with? Ivy leaguers with stable, supportive families, an optimistic outlook, and a 20-year plan? Or equally messy and complex humans with a set of neuroses handed down from their unexamined early traumas that make them similarly bitter and disillusioned with life? Just… probably hidden from immediate sight.

Grown men who’ve responsibly built a life for themselves with ambition, personal insight, and balance? Or man-children who’re still figuring out that they can’t drink every night of the week if they want to be functional in life and financially sound? But... with their addictions hidden behind “an appreciation for fine whiskies” or a necessity to sample the craft beer they brew.

Independent, confident humans who have no problem running their own world like a boss and trust that I’m capable of doing the same, with integrity and respect? Or distrustful turds who need me to be in their sight, half-directing their lives at all times unless I’m aiming to be accused of cheating, lying, and being unable to care for myself? Only… they hide their controlling and aggressive tendencies behind go-with-the-flow facades in the beginning.

If you guessed “B” in all three examples, you are correct!

Plus... so, so many musicians. Like, the last 6 of them have either subscribed to guitar or drum camp. And that hasn't been a purposeful decision - those are just the men I get along with until we hate each other.

It's always a rapid connection, a mutual respect for our interests in the arts, and a shared shitty attitude that starts out directed at the world and ends directed at each other. So many emotions. So many ups and downs. So many proclamations of "I can't live without you!" until the day we run in opposite directions and never look back.

Is that a coincidence? Or are all musical folk a bit wild? I hate to generalize, but I can tell you with great amusement that if you start typing "Are all musicians..." into Google, it will autocomplete with "cheaters, narcissists, and crazy." It also suggests "rich," but I can tell you for a fact that isn't true. The narcissist thing... uh.... very well might be correct. But I'll leave that for someone else to study.

So, I don't know what to make of this trend. There do seem to be some commonalities between the musicians in my past life - and they do seem to be categorized by the instrument of choice. For instance, drummers are never concerned with my time, and guitarists are emotional catastrophes. But what do I know? Can't make sweeping conclusions... I, at least, need a larger sample size. With my track record, I'm sure I'll have the numbers soon enough.

Congratulations if you predicted nothing but unstable disasters in my past. It's true, I’m an idiot. Okay, that’s not fair. No inner critic talk. Get out of here, Pam and Karen.

The fact of the matter is, I am a terrible judge of character when I start sensing a connection. I tend to connect with people who have complicated lives and inner worlds, just like I do. And from what I can tell, that is always my downfall.

Challenging connections

Let’s go ahead and chalk this one up to never having close connections or support growing up.

You know what I always wanted, hoped for, and idealized as a kid? Someone loving me. Another human actually understanding my weirdness and signing on for more. The idea of a human who wanted to know what I thought and felt. The option of spending time with someone and feeling cared for. Also, somebody finding me attractive, instead of being repulsed by my ass-length ginger hair, flat chest, dorky hand-me-downs, bleach-stained horse sweaters, and buck teeth... also would have been a dream come true.

I’m pretty sure that growing up lonely didn’t help me in any regard when it came to my later-in-life relationship problems. Starving for connection apparently puts you in a state of deprivation, where you’re likely to think anything is better than the empty feeling inside. You know, just for the rest of your life or so.

To this day, if I meet someone and we’re able to converse without abundant clarifications or apologies for the prickly things that come out of my mouth as dry humor or unbendable opinions… we’re on a roll. If we can connect over shared perspectives on humans, life, and psychology… things are getting more serious. If we can honestly talk about the ways we’re horrible to ourselves and joke about our shared challenges in figuring out what the point of this shitty slip-and-slide of life is about… uh oh, this might be a real connection.

And so, it makes sense that I connect with all the most complicated people you’d ever meet. And we connect INTENSELY. I’m complicated, myself, and I look for folks who can accept it without their heads exploding. I’m never going to be happy holding conversations with Sports Bar Joe or Pretty Boy Blaine. They’re never going to understand the internal strife that dominates my world. I’m never going to understand how they can be all *happy,* *close with their families,* and *laid back about life.*

Gross. I can’t even say the words.

But give me the angstiest, most anxious, most misunderstood dude on the block, and we’re likely to get along swimmingly. We’ll talk over beers until the birds start to chirp. We’ll joke in our native tongues, playing with words, obscure references, and dry humor as if we’ve known each other for 25 years. We’ll share secrets about our tumultuous inner worlds and the ways that we can’t seem to get our heads on straight enough to keep our ships on course.

And the next thing you know, we’ll be incestuously connected with a somewhat false sense of intimacy that erupts out of the gates. “No one has ever understood me the way you do. I can really be myself around you. I’ve never had such easy conversations about this shit before.”

… That’s about the point when I lose all perspective. There’s a tunnel running from my face to this dude’s heart. I stop seeing things for what they are. I project a kinder, gentler, more well-intended personality on the subject of my feels. I quickly turn a blind eye to all the shit they’re doing that I wholeheartedly hate or otherwise cause my red flags to be unpacked.

I feel like I know them, inside and out. I feel like I can help them - like we can help each other - to sort through this dumb world we’ve been born into and all the circumstances holding us back. A real Sid and Nancy storyline emerges. No one gets him like I do. If only they could see the things I see. We’re just two broken souls who found each other, a little rough around the edges, but we see the diamonds underneath. And we’re in this battle together from now on.

Yeah, right.

Sooooo… This is how I wind up with the unpredictable narcissists who seem like nice guys, the secret addicts who keep their substance abuse hidden from everyone, and the emotional abusers who are ready to leverage my mental health admissions against me the first time they get the chance. Dudes who have highly emotional worlds and no idea how to deal with them. Men who don’t want to explore their own shortcomings and instead choose avoidant courses in life.

And, again, the musicians. So, so many musicians. I really am coming to think that they’re the most fucked up people of all - and that's saying a lot coming from me. Generally speaking, I've seen that there’s no sense of personal responsibility, an obsession with themselves, and a hidden inferiority complex that turns them into bitchy little dogs when they feel threatened. What’s with that, anyways? Can you guys try to be more original in your plight to be the most original?

Okay, anyways. Sorry to keep dragging on musicians.

The point is, my attempts at relationships start out on the wrong foot. Choosing the wrong partner is a pretty surefire way to dash all hopes for those fluffy ideals I mentioned earlier. No one is going to respect me, listen to me, or support me when they’re too busy dealing with their own alcoholism, abandonment issues, and narcissistic flailings… or, not dealing with them, to be more specific.

We aren’t going to be able to work through things when they’re consumed with being the king of the world, hiding from all negative emotions, and trying to keep their head away from analysing their own actions. Hell, it’ll be difficult to even find the time for serious talks, since they’re so busy traveling to band practices, hustling away for barely-paying gigs, and staring at their social media while they count the ways they’re victims of the universe.

Choose imbalanced, mentally ill, self-serving partners… get unhealthy, controlling, unpredictable relationships. Pretty goddamn obvious. And yet, I still can never seem to see the full picture of the human who’s caught my attention through the fog that’s created by the connection of our shared dysfunctions.

I guess this is where that, “love yourself and get yourself healthy first,” sentiment comes into play, so the connections don’t continue to be as disasterious as your personal experience is. Hopefully I’m on the right path in my own journey, at least. Also, a lot less starved for connection. I got y’all Motherfuckers in the Discord community, for starters. And I’ve become determined to live a life where I support myself and rely on no one outside of Archie’s snuggles, for finishers.

Step one: Be careful about who you deem a good person, just because you can share self-deprecating jokes about being nutjobs and similar musical interests. Learn to choose someone who isn’t an even trashier trash human than you are. It’s a start.

Emotional codependency

Hand in hand with forming connections that include deep emotional outpourings and admissions of all the dark things we hide from the light at our office jobs… comes codependency.

I’ve said it before and let me say it again… I didn’t understand codependency until very recently.

In my mind, it was akin to those creepy couples who won’t leave the house without each other, have the same friends, interests, and opinions on everything... and possibly wear matching cat shirts. Those people who never spend time with other humans because they're too busy being shoved up their partner’s ass. The folks who call to check in on each other throughout the day when they’re at work. Gag. Particularly, I imagined those pathetic girls who cry when their boyfriend is out of sight and post 12 pictures a day of them together.

Rightfully, I scoffed and insisted that I didn't have problems with codependency. That’s not me. But it turns out, this view isn’t quite right, so much as I was being an uninformed asshole.

Codependency doesn’t mean you’re a needy, incapable human being who sucks the life power out of someone else, like I used to think. Codependency is a two-way relationship defined by poor boundaries and non-existent emotional regulation. Two humans who see their experiences as one, all the way down to how they feel and how they deal with how they feel. (i.e. turning to their significant other for comfort and emotional control in a time of need instead of working through it by themselves). Relationships where the emotions are transferred from party to party until it's unclear who’s bringing what dish to the gathering. Waking up not knowing how your day is going to be, because it depends on how someone else feels about theirs. Emotional enablement city.

Oh, yeah, when you put it like that, I definitely have issues with codependency.

For me, the codependency is largely going to be emotional. In the past, I didn’t know how to have a relationship of any sort without having a third influence in the mix. There was the person, myself, and our shared emotions... that often called more shots than either of us did.

Because I tend to be on the empath scale (although I do everything I can to fight it out of defense), I think I’m naturally tuned into other people’s emotional and energetic states, for better or for worse. When someone walks into the room with a bad vibe, I feel it to my core. I become so uncomfortable that I take it on myself to try to “fix” the problem for them, and in doing so, I avoid the negative sensation, myself. This is negative reinforcement, if anyone wanted to ABA with me.

That being said, clearly if my boo is having a hard time… it’s not okay. They’re in a shit place and therefore so am I. I must do whatever I can to make it better. To sit down and talk in circles with them, if that’s what relieves some of their tension. To commiserate about how unfair the circumstances are. To validate the negativity that they’re projecting and wallowing in.

Don’t worry though, this goes the other way, too. In the past, I have fully expected my romantic partners to alleviate any inner discomfort that I’ve felt. If I was having a low-down day, I wanted them to cheer me up. If I was full of anxiety, I wanted them to find a way to release it. If I was frustrated with a work situation or coworker, I wanted them to be as angry and indignant as I felt.

So… I guess that doesn’t even sound too off-base to me, at least not when I’m leaning on my teenage expectations of what relationships are supposed to be. In my head, it was always completely ideal that I would wind up with someone who could essentially read my thoughts and comfort me like my family never did. I just wanted someone who would be by my side, thinking about me all the time, and working double time to make sure I was keeping my depression and anxiety on the up-and-up. Is that too much to ask? Uh… yeah, it is.

Maybe in a fairytale love story like the ones I saw in teenage romance movies growing up, this is the perfect way for two broken misfits to interact. “We’re both so damaged and hurt that no one has ever really seen us - but now we have each other to lick our shared wounds.” Yeah, romantic. Also really fucked up and dangerous in the real world.

The problem is, after a few months of this, it gets pretty hard to determine what’s my experience and what’s yours. The emotions become so transitive that it can be invigorating, immersive, overwhelming, and exhausting to be in each other’s company, depending on the day and the event. Living together or essentially sharing a residence makes it much worse - there’s no physical barrier between us, so that emotional barrier is even less existent. We don't have to try to text about our woes, we can just unleash them the moment we step foot in the door. Ready or not, your night is about to be ruined by my day, and vice-versa.

How does this go wrong? Uh, let’s count the ways.

1. My emotional management was never up to par, in the first place. Having your feelings catapulted my way effectively pushes me off the balance beam that I was already wobbling on. If I was having a difficult day but holding it together on my own through coping techniques and reasonable thinking - fucking forget it, that’s over now. We’re both in a shitty state now. Great. In the context of trying to recover from mental health issues… yeah, it’s a fucking disaster. Being retriggered by your partner or sucked into a depressive undertow when you’re trying to make positive change is a losing battle.

2. I never learned how to cope with my own emotions. There was generally someone else for me to hurtle them at, and our subsequent hours of bitching would give me the comfort I was looking for. I didn’t need to learn to manage my feelings - I always had a glorified babysitter to keep me alive. I never had to be accountable for my inner world. I never had to look at things with logic or reason. I could let myself spiral and trust that my best friend or boyfriend would catch me before I slipped down the drain.

3. It becomes impossible to talk about issues - personal or shared. When you’re already sharing emotions there’s an explosive effect when conflict is brought up. Neither one of us knows how to handle our shit, we expect the other person to hold us up with kid gloves, annnd now that person is the source of my distress? We’re both completely beside ourselves, upset, hurt, and angry… and it’s towards each other? Now who the fuck do we call? There's a huge sense of confusion and betrayal. No one has the skills to de-escalate the argument or return to a normal emotional state.

4. How do you break up when half of your existence is in the body of another human? You can’t mentally or emotionally separate yourself from them. Physically separating yourself feels like ripping out a few of your organs and leaving them on the streets. And, who’s going to keep you afloat when you’re going through the pain of the break up? That’s the job of your partner, afterall… can’t have a vacant desk sitting here. It’s best to just suck it up and stick with it. No one would understand what you’ve both been through together, anyways.

In a word, that’s codependency.

Not what people think it is. Not what our culture describes it as. Not so easy to spot until you’re educated and honest with yourself… plus, probably viewing things through the lenses of hindsight.

Definitely a sneaky recipe for disaster when you let it take over a well-intended, emotionally transparent, highly connective relationship. And, Motherfuckers, I’ve always tended to.

 Head to t-mfrs.com for more!

[ineedrelationshipadvice]

My boyfriend and I have been on again off again since we were teens. (We're in our late 20s.) I truly love him but my mental health issues (I have CPTSD, which is severe) have been significantly harmful to his life and his own mental health. I keep trying to end things for his sake, but then he wants to get back together and I give in because it's what I wanted all along. I always end up hurting him again and I hate myself so much for it. I have no clue what to do now. Thanks in advance.

Being the source of issues in a situation like this is always rough. It might be hard to think of yourself as "the problem," and of course there is NOTHING wrong with you struggling to deal with your own mental issues on your own. But if those issues do cause problems, then at very least it's important to identify yourself as the source of these issues. Why? Because only through acknowledgement of the difficulties that your inherent way of being - a mental condition that you have little control over by necessity of how these conditions work - can we then leverage the powers we have to do our best to control the issue while keeping those around us safe.

How everyone deals with this is going to be different from person to person. You know what's on the plate having already struggled with your condition. There are only so many practical things that can be done, namely making sure you're seeing doctors for your condition, and making sure that you're appropriately medicated to ensure the worst of your symptoms stays under control.

But in a more practical sense, it's really important to communicate with your partner. You say you're hurting your partner, but you never express how. This leads me to an inevitable conclusion that either you actually are hurting him, or you could be ASSUMING you're hurting him. I can't say for sure, because I only have your words to go by. But an important step is to make sure your actions actually are hurting him. My girlfriend has a lot of chronic pain issues, and a lot of issues with communication in general; this can leave me feeling a bit out of place, like sometimes I'm forgotten about. Does that hurt? Yeah, but I also am totally aware of her situation, so I let her get away with more than I would in a relationship with someone who didn't have the same conditions, because I know she's working through an uphill fight. Perhaps your boyfriend holds a similar perspective, even if you are inevitably hurting him a little bit. It's important to actually see where he stands though.

If he's fine being in a relationship with you after you have a good, honest talk about things, then YOU need to put on your big-people pants and do some hard work. Namely, you need to ask him what hurts him, and how you can limit those particular functions. That could take infinite shapes, because everyone's needs are individual and different. But he will surely know how to prevent pain on his end; we're VERY good, as people, in making sure we don't get hurt (most of the time), so if there's something in particular that affects him or his own mental issues, he'll know what it is, and he'll tell you. Once you learn what his issues with your behaviour are, you have to see if there's some way you can meet him in the middle. Because a lot of your issues, I assume, are out of your control, you have to find the places where you do have control, and see if that's enough to make things on his end easier.

The larger issue in giving any further advice is that I just don't know your situation or your mental disorder. I don't know how it works, so I don't want to give you advice that is either ineffective, or would just be a shitty thing for me to suggest when you literally can't follow the advice or it's just completely useless for you. As such, you should take these same concerns to your psychologist or psychiatrist. They may not be best equipped to help you with relationship advice there, but they are professionals who DO know your situation in a way that I never can, so they are honestly more proficient in their ability to help you than I am.

Whether you should be in this relationship still or if your idea to break things off is the best idea is hard to say. Saying "true love will win out" is super cliché, because the world is more complicated than that. But if he is willing to fight for you, and you're willing to try again in spite of the setbacks you experience as a result of your mental disorder, then perhaps you are on the best timeline at the moment. Work on things as best as you can through communication, both with your partner and your nearest medical expert. Through that hard work, hopefully you can find a resolution.

[tiredbiplantlady]

The thing about having CPTSD and therefore deficits in my development, issues with personal identity, and struggles with dissociative emotional selves, emotional flashbacks and paranoia is that as I grow and exist in environments now where I am supported and loved unconditionally, I get to start over. I mean, I can't erase the programming deep down in my head. I can't erase the painful memories and the wounds of intense emotional damage. But I get to rebuild myself now. Instead of allowing someone else to break me down to nothing with verbal, physical, sexual, emotional abuse and telling me who to be so I'm good enough for them to love me, I get to see myself as I am, where I am and ask MYSELF - "Who are you? Who do you want to be?" I am nearly 27 years old and I have yet to ask myself this question and know that I mean it. I am nearly 27 years old and am going through what I imagine I should have gone through at 17 or 18 as I navigated college and developing my adult self. A self I didn't get to develop because it was being stunted further by my abusive and toxic relationships that echoed the stunted developments from ages past I had no idea how to heal. I feel like I spent most of my life a hollow shell needing to be told who to be in order to get my needs met, willing to do and be anything in order to be "loved". I functioned solely on lower planes of existence, fighting to survive today, unable to think about tomorrow unless it was to live in constant fear. If I could rest today, what if everything that allowed me to rest now was gone tomorrow? What would I do then? My life was a constant state of hypervigilance from early childhood on, so much so that when I do not have a pressing problem to worry about, when things feel "too calm" or "too good" I become increasingly paranoid. It does not occur to me that calm is how people are supposed to feel. My body is too accustomed to cortisol pounding through my body at all times and the lack of stress and fear actually causes me to feel like something is wrong, pushing the stress hormones through my body yet again, a conditioned sense of relief. I have an addiction to looking for satisfaction that can't exist within this pattern. Today, I ask myself: who am I? Because I am not a blank slate to be painted on by others. I am not the robot I feel I used to be awaiting commands or indications. I am not an actress reading off a script and looking for reactions to tell me if I'm on the right track. Today, I switch from existing to react to existing in action. What do I want to be? What makes me happy? Who adds to my happiness? What can I not live with? What can I not live without? The chapter of my life where I got to the point of asking these questions is closing and the chapter where I decide what the answers are is opening. I became a psychologist because, deep down, I really do believe in therapy, and I believe that people need the things I have to offer that I was not given. I believe that my struggles allow me to help others. I believe that my struggles have made me a better listener and a better interpreter and better able to provide real empathy and unconditional love. But a lot of the reason too was because everyone told me I would be good at it. My parents, my rapist, abusers, acquaintances, professors, supervisors. It felt like an extension of my identity - an identity who also allowed others to walk all over her and who really, desperately just wanted to understand and fix herself. Becoming a therapist was not hard for me because it comes naturally to me, and that's great. But it isn't my identity and it isn't all of who I am. Knowing that I am a natural therapist and that my natural skill set is one that is best used communicating with others, how can I use that to make a difference, work in an environment that gives me the freedom and opportunities I seek? I resisted working with kids because it was too painful for me. Especially the SED population because it was like watching myself struggle and being unable to stop it. It was initially extremely triggering and set off emotional alarms all over the place. I was exhausted and upset almost all of the time. I hated my job. But I kept at it and listened to what I was telling myself and realized that I love working with kids even more than adults. It destroys me to see all of the negative in their lives, but knowing that I've been through much of what so many of them go through and I can give them support and understanding others might not, that gives me a sense of meaning and purpose beyond other opportunities I've had. It ignited something in me to realize this. I began wanting to work with kids and to have opportunities to educate other professionals on how to best help them. Trauma-informed care education is incredibly important to me. I do not want to be in the therapy setting. I want to be in education. I not only want to be able to work with kids who acheive their goals and to help them improve, but I want to work with teachers and help them better understand how to help SED kids, improve classrooms, improve student learning, improve symptom recognition, improve the value of mental health in schools. School is where most kids spend the majority of their days. I can see a kid one hour every two weeks, not getting the whole picture, not being involved in any area of their life and their parents actively sabotaging our work and blaming their kid for their own failings, or I can see kids every day and work with their teachers to provide a better support system and give them hope and help finding opportunities. I want kids to feel motivated to do their best to improve their own lives and to be aware of mental health through it all.

[uberrapidash]

Every time someone says something along the lines of “we’re all living through trauma, so take it easy on yourself,” I get a little more angry. I feel like I’m about at the point of bursting in some anger meltdown, or something, if that’s a thing. 

If you’re tired, if you’re depressed, if you’re unorganized and forgetting things and losing things, if you’re not able to find motivation, if you’re disengaged from the world, if you’re not able to get things done for some reason - it’s all okay because you’re living through a trauma and you just gotta take it easy on yourself and rest and try to relax. 

Newfound leniency and accommodations are everywhere. And it’s pissing me off because the same isn’t offered to me and people like me under normal circumstances.

Nothing is different for me under the pandemic. Life is actually much more bearable for me right now. 

I’m lucky that I am in a rural area, and my family is all in the outskirts of a metropolitan area and it’s rural enough that they are all relatively okay. We all have access to supplies and hospitals that aren’t overrun (yet, at least). We are all financially pretty much the same. No one has lost any jobs. I was already living off my student loans.

Yeah, I’m worried about my loved ones dying, too. But that’s not different for me, either. I was already worried about my 90-year-old grandmother because she is elderly, frail, and frankly severely depressed. I was already worried about my dad because up until recently, he was a police officer in a high-crime, high-poverty, high-minority city in an area of the U.S. that really doesn’t care about its poor (he retired last year). I was already worried about my mom because she is in an abusive marriage and refuses to leave - she has been choked, suffocated, and has had bones broken. I was already worried about my brother because he has type 1 diabetes on top of myotonic dystrophy. I was already worried about my best friend since middle school because I have watched her body waste away because of Ehlers-Danlos, and that’s on top of the recent sudden death of her mother in a fatal accident, and an unsupportive father that’s in denial and thinks there’s absolutely nothing wrong with her, and a country that won’t give her income or healthcare - so I was already scared for her physical health, mental health, and livelihood. 

So, really? What the pandemic has done for me is only good. My classes went online. Two of my classes were basically canceled but I still get an A in them. I can now move through my classes at my own pace, get enough sleep, eat when I need to, use the bathroom when I need to, take a break when I need to, etc. My academic performance has gotten better without changing anything, just because I’m not so fucking drained all the time and my anxiety is lessened because I’m not pushing my body beyond its limits on a daily basis. (I’m behind in my applied area, but I will catch up.)

Before, when I had learned about CPTSD, and benefitted from EMDR therapy, and went a long period of time of no-contact with my mom, I still had a deep seed of doubt that I was actually living with PTSD. But now that this pandemic has happened and I’m seeing how everyone is reacting to it, I will never have doubts again that I live with PTSD. I could go on explaining why I think I have PTSD starting all the way back at the time of my birth, but that’s not the point of this vent. 

The point is that this world of leniency and accommodations is not open to me or people like me under normal circumstances, and I’m getting more and more pissed off about it. 

It’s like that viral twitter post that I saw at the beginning of all of this shit: 

Screenshot of text post by Twitter user Jocelyn, @jocyofthedragon, which reads, “My school just went full online and I dropped out last month because I was told that I couldn’t go online part time for my disability or care assistant reasons. This is BULLSHIT.”

I have taken failing grades in college in the past because of bad semesters due to the state of my health. I have been denied social security income even though I have lost every single job I have ever held (and that is a long list of jobs) because my body can’t keep up. The older I get and the longer I fight, the more and more apparent it becomes that this world, this society, this country, even communities that I thought cared about me, don’t give a shit about me. 

I know, “oh boo-hoo,” yeah I get it. Poor me. Maybe I wouldn’t feel this so strongly if I actually had a family that truly loved me during my formative years. I don’t know. I’ll never know. 

I recently finished the series BoJack Horseman. It is almost scary how much I identify with BoJack, the shit-bag himself. 

I’m getting sidetracked again. 

I am a disabled person. Maybe I’m actually starting to accept it now. I’m not sure I ever had the opportunity before to see whatever it was that I needed to see for my stupid brain to finally realize that I really am disabled. 

I am done down-playing the debilitating symptoms of whatever is wrong with me. I am done being polite in doctors appointments, when they down-play the severity of my symptoms. 

I am so angry. I want justice. I know there are others out there who feel this way, too. 

I didn’t make my point eloquently. But I got a lot of stuff out, at least. 

[pussymagicuniverse]

A Change is as Good as a Rest: Learning Little Lessons From Mercury

As I write this, yet another Mercury retrograde is coming to an end. When this is published, our speedy little space friend should be stationing direct, leaving varying degrees of chaos – or, as we’ll see, solved problems – in his wake. But I like the opportunities Mercury brings, even when he’s backtracking, so I thought I’d share a poem about an experience my son had during a past Mercury retrograde, and my views about how the whole mess can be helpful. 

My eldest son – let’s call him C – is a quadruple Gemini (one of two signs ruled by Mercury, the other is Virgo). His natal sun, Mercury, Venus, and ascendant are all in Gemini and his chart is Mercury dominant by many miles. My second son – E – is a triple Gemini (sun, Mercury, Venus) with Virgo rising and is also Mercury dominant, but Mercury retrograde always affects C much more obviously than it affects E.

One such incident was in Summer 2017: while visiting friends in Llandudno (North Wales), I co-hosted a poetry event, and we held the readings at the end of the pier. Mercury had just started moving backwards that day, or maybe the day before. C was 14 at the time, my other sons 12 and 13, my older daughter was just a year old, and I was four months pregnant with my younger daughter. My sons were all in the arcade right next to where we were reading when C decided to wander off while the other two were playing games. It’s worth mentioning C is autistic and so am I, and while C is a mega Gemini, my own chart is Virgo dominant despite my natal sun and Mercury being in Cancer (the short explanation is: I have three planets in Virgo – Mars, Jupiter, Saturn). A minor state of emergency ensued, with poets splitting off in different directions to look for C. It turned out he’d walked all the way back up the pier to the beach. On purpose, yes, but without telling anyone where he was going. There are always a few sides to a story, and this was no exception. Several months later, I wrote the following poem, which explains our two sides to the best of my ability.

•

Mercurial  

The younger ones ask where the eldest has gone, say it’s been half an hour since they saw him— in this moment the pier is ten miles long instead of just over one.

He’s the child who refuses a phone, and in this moment all bad things are possible; it’s like he wants to disappear. In this moment you almost hate the sea you love, because you know if he jumped in, he’d never make it. That’s a fine fate you’d keep for yourself, but not your children.

Everyone separates, leaves you to the vacuum of your headspace— you wander through murk of candy- floss, choking on doo-wop pumped through loudspeakers, the buzz of 2p slot machines. The sea is serene and you think it is waiting, or sated…

then someone’s calling, someone’s found him, on dry land, solid pavement beneath his feet. Your son lopes back down the pier to you, you look up to his his face, tell him how it scares you when he goes missing—his eyes clear, curious: to him you speak a dead tongue—he insists he knew where he was all along. 

*reprinted from my chapbook Land and Sea and Turning (CWP Collective Press, 2018)

 •

It’s interesting how Mercury retrograde played out for both of us that day in equal but opposite ways. We are both autistic, we are both heavily influenced by this mischievous planet – so while C went his own way, following his natural Gemini butterfly curiosity, it felt like everything he’d detached from – the noise, the lights, the smells, the caring about his own personal safety… – overwhelmed me instead. But there’s no point to astrological insight if we don’t allow it to teach us something. I learned to trust more in my son because of this experience – the older my boys get, the more I learn that letting them go their own way is gradual, not something that happens when they turn a specific age or leave home – and he learned to be more careful about communicating with his family.

Thankfully this most recent Mercury retrograde has been tame (though there’s still some hours left, so we’ll see how it goes). C had some misunderstandings with friends, but nothing too troublesome. It’s been a little stressful for me where communication is concerned, and deliveries have been slow, muddled, or non-existent. But I’ve used the time for quietly working on poetry projects, domestic organising (a never-ending task for a family of seven, and this Mercury has been transiting my 4th house of home and family!), and as usual, setting some things right that went a bit wrong previously – including preparing an anthology for publication after a nine month delay. I also finished my allocated therapy sessions for cptsd, complete with practical spellcraft to help me stay on track. 

I’ve learned over the years that when I’m being guided to slow my pace, I better do it – and ironically fast-moving Mercury is the number one teacher for me where that’s concerned, surprisingly more often than my chart’s own slow-but-steady dominant planet, Saturn. Even the poetry reading I did this month – a guest spot at an event I was supposed to do over two years ago but had to postpone (see what I mean about setting things right?) – was in a relaxed environment.

Because it’s tinged with chaos and drama – always fun for everyone – Mercury retrograde has become well known outside of astrological or witchy circles, but it is somewhat misunderstood. I’m only a witch with my head in the stars (plus one foot on the ground and the other in the water) not a professional astrologer, but in my experience it’s not worse than anything else the planets and the zodiac throw at us – it’s a party compared to what some planets can do (yes I’m looking at you again, Saturn). And even when it isn’t fun, it’s all energy to be harnessed and used in specific ways. I always feel like the most important thing Mercury can teach us is how to change and adapt when necessary – and it can be especially effective when he’s the reason we need to do it in the first place.

Born in Southern Ohio, but settled in the UK since 1999, Kate is a writer, witch, editor and mother of five. She is the author of several poetry pamphlets, and the founding editor of four web journals and a micropress.

Her witchcraft is a blend of her great-grandmother's Appalachian ways and the Anglo-Celtic craft of the country she now calls home – though she incorporates tarot, astrology, and her ancestors, plus music, film, books, and many other things into her practice. Her spiritual life is best described as queer Christopagan with emphasis on the feminine and the natural world. She believes magic is everywhere.

Find Kate on twitter and IG - @mskateybelle - and at her website.