#being an adult is hard and exhausting

[aceofshitposts]

i've basically been thinking about this post about how if you mention being aro/ace in therapy that most therapists will treat that as something to fix non stop since i first saw it so fuck it we're talking about my experience with aromanticism and asexuality (and, honestly, borderline personality disorder as an extension of that)

so if you've been here for any amount of time you've probably figured out i love romance. i love shipping characters, i love writing romance, i love happy endings. and that's been pretty consistent my whole life but

i never really felt those things for myself. i used to like think of boys in my class and try and figure out if my distaste for them was actually a crush or what have you lmao however this wasn't really a problem until i started having my friends in highschool start telling me i must've had a crush on a friend because i'd get so happy to talk to him.

i had no idea what a crush was supposed to be like so surely my friends knew better than me?

and so this went several times over the years with my friends telling me i *must* have a crush when i didn't think i did. but nobody ever believes you when you claim to not have romantic feelings for anyone and i didn't trust my own feelings enough to stand up for myself. i kept thinking i wasn't trying hard enough and berate myself for being unable to act normal in a relationship.

it took a long long time to realize i don't want a romantic relationship. but with that comes its own set of problems because i don't want to be alone either.

i spent a good chunk of my life dreaming of yknow that one person who is supposed to love you through thick and thin and to suddenly realize that's never going to happen to you is... rough. and it's hard to get people to understand without them telling you to just try harder.

i feel like it's like telling someone who's trans that they just weren't trying hard enough to be their assigned gender. it's not a matter of trying hard enough it's just not how you feel. i may act in a way some people might perceive as romantic but that's just not how i feel about it. i wish i did. i desperately want to be able to feel romantic love myself and yet it is just out of reach for me. so i live vicariously through fanfiction.

and like, i know queer platonic relationships exist but they're hard to find. and i am trying, mind you, i haven't given up but it's just. tough.

and then there's the bpd which adds a whole other aspect of bullshit to all of this because

i'm constantly angry and jealous and prone to break downs and shutting off my emotions entirely depending. i'm angry at myself all the time for failing to meet my own made up parameters of "being normal"; i get jealous when i realize other people have these close relationships that i feel like i'll never get and then i'll just. turn off my feelings for people at the drop of a hat if i feel threatened in any way.

which is. no way to live and yet here we are. i don't blame anyone for not wanting to be around me because of all this and like. at the same time i'm not mad directly at anyone for their decisions or anything.

i just have a lot of emotions and it's difficult to drown them out to a bearable level without shutting down completely. and nobody wants to deal with me when i'm angry which is like fair but at the same time i always end up feeling like i'm not allowed to feel those things. i keep hearing about validating your feelings but then in therapy i'm supposed to use techniques to distract myself and stop myself from being angry but it always seems to be i'm supposed to forget about whatever triggered me.

just grin and bare it until the grinning is your default i guess.

and there's this whole other level of because my emotions are largely negative that everything is my fault. that if i snap it's a problem with me, i have to apologize for my outbursts and be the one who does better going forward. and like- that's fine. i'm fine taking responsibility for my actions but there's been times where i am just trying to express that i have feelings and get told to calm down or end up having to comfort the other person because they think i'm attacking them.

anyway. it's not like i expect anyone here to have solutions or anything. and like i said this isn't like... me being mad at anyone in particular it's just a lot of things i have experienced over my entire life. one of the things i know does help me is putting my thoughts out into the world. helps me feel like they're real rather than just having them bounce around in my head like the dvd logo lol

[liminalspacewizard]

[roobylavender]

im really sorry if this question ends up being repetitive: but, if not for bruce’s over reliance on dick to regulate his thoughts and emotions, why would dick grow up into feeling like he needs to repress his emotions so much and his eagerness to act as people’s support? i know youve spoken about wolfman and his altering of their relationship but if ntt is generally an accurate portrayal of an adult dick, to me this nevertheless sounds like the consequences a parent-child relationship where the responsibilities are titled too much towards the child

i suppose this could also segue into asking for recs that would help me better understand your interpretation of their relationship 👀

not repetitive at all! to me the irony of wolfman's depiction of dick lies in that it is simultaneously something you can logically ascertain from prior canon but not for the reasons actually presented by wolfman. if that makes sense. he does extra work that isn't actually necessary to help explain why dick would act the way that he does because there's plenty of reasons for it without rewriting his history with bruce to have always been suppressed and edgy and dark. to me it makes far more sense to capitalize on the inevitable disconnect between bruce and dick as an adult and a child. batman: full circle is a good example of that dichotomy (and although it was published in the early 90s it built on mike w. barr's prior understanding of the relationship between dick and bruce that he wrote into the early 80s). bruce's primary concern for the people he works with is never standards or finesse but safety. he worries constantly about others coming to harm under his watch and with a child in particular those worries were exacerbated. he ran a tight ship not because he believed dick had anything to prove but because the only way dick could keep being robin was if he went about it safely. that was obv easy for an adult to understand. but not so much for a child

to bruce these worries were practical and par for the course (as well as an expression of his love and protectiveness) but for dick their consequences formed the crux of his entire world. as a child he idolized everything about bruce. his heroism. his work ethic. his skill. his resolve. his preparedness. if dick couldn't live up to the standard he set for himself in idolizing bruce then what could he ever hope to amount to? that was the thought constantly going through his head. and it's why the bulk of his childhood and primary tenure as bruce's partner was so precariously protected by the fact that nothing bad ever really happened during it (and admittedly this framing is convenient because even chronologically speaking nothing very significant happened in their history with each other until dick left for university in 1969) (i know dixon opted to write that whole shtick with dent in his version of events but personally i never found it necessary to do so). there is enough there in the idea of dick working hard for the course of a decade to embody who he believed bruce to be that lends itself to it eventually being difficult for him to healthily express himself once the rift between them actually began to emerge

because what about bruce was there to actually see that was broken and dark before dick became an adult? i know a lot of dick fans hate batman #408 because they don't like that it enforced "retirement" upon dick (which i personally believe is a conclusion they come to because of the way batman #416 re-framed the same scene) but to me that's an inaccurate reading of the text. batman #408 was about bruce (admittedly far too belatedly) recognizing that he could not in good conscience continue to ask dick to go out and be a vigilante on what he considered to be his own "orders". he viewed dick's close call with death at the hands of the joker as something directly of his own making. although their tenure with each other had been wonderful if dick wanted to continue to be a vigilante it had to be on his own terms and of his own volition. obv that was logical to bruce and it was something dick managed to accept in the moment. but it's still hard to go from always having a purpose alongside someone you idolized to finally being entrusted entirely to forge your own

in general i like the idea of dick the adult becoming privy to all of the personal problems and conflicts that come with being a vigilante. he was conveniently shielded from a lot of those problems as a child because all he had to do was be bruce's partner and hope to live up to the title. bruce had no reason to trauma dump on him or talk about his worries and concerns at length with him because it was never supposed to be dick's job to field those worries and concerns in the first place. he was a child. the only thing bruce wanted to do was to help channel his emotions through an outlet and provide him with a home to grow up in. but when you become an adult often that dynamic shifts. you're still not responsible for fielding those worries and concerns but you can perhaps be trusted with them. that's why i like the framing in batman #408 of dick now being a man. it's a subtle way to frame the double-edged sword of adulthood. the world is in your hands now but so will be the horrors that come with it. coming to terms with the real world that bruce lives in should be hard for dick. coming to terms with who bruce is when he's not perfect should be hard. coming to terms with how quietly bruce kept his grief because he did not see fit to overwhelm a child with it should be hard. that dichotomy of dick both wanting to be bruce's brother and his son should form the crux of their conflict with each other because you can't hope to be someone's equal and someone's protected at the same time in that kind of relationship. for dick to transition into the position of equal he has to expose himself to the fact that bruce is not in fact an idol but someone irrevocably human. and that should interfere significantly with his head and his own standards for himself

[goodfellowe]

Each string was a life, each strand sectioning off into a what if, a splitting cable that led to endless possibilities. Different lives in different worlds. Better lives in better worlds.

The Way Time Twists (AO3)

Chapter 18: Kid

The strings pull. The strings snag.

The sun warmed her closed eyelids, tinting everything in a hazy, muted glow. She could hear the faint squalls of seagulls, the distant chatter of voices she didn’t recognize, and the waves crashing into the sea from what felt like a hundred miles away. Save for the smell of metal, faint underneath the sea salt in the air and the terrible rot wafting out from the dumpsters, everything was fine. She blinked open her eyes, slowly sitting up and taking in her surroundings. She recognized it. All of it. It was Mafia Town. It was... Mafia Town? But you’ve never been here before- a thought, murmured by an uncomfortably familiar voice, wormed its way into the forefront of her mind, unbidden. This is your first time away from home.

Chapter 19: The Way Time Twists

Kid's memories blur and blend together, but they're not just hers this time. (But they are, aren't they?)

Art by @nakakabaliw.

[itspileofgoodthings]

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[isesalterego]

Lessons in Chemistry Ep. 4 (2023)

[1ntrvrt-shdw]

im failing at everything

[lightblueminecraftorchid]

being sick as an adult sucks. wdym my mom won’t just automatically make sure I eat food instead of exclusively drinking Gatorade all day. wdym I have to ask my roommates to make me dinner. I have to Venmo a friend money to buy me more Gatorade?? I can’t focus enough to do homework??? I hate this.

[extemporaneousrabbithole]

i have so many ideas for things i want to accomplish and concepts i think will work to aid me in doing these things. i’ll be so confident and ready and then suddenly one thing in my brain will trip me up and now i’m having an existential crisis and wondering why and how i’m still alive. humaning is weird.

[liminalspacewizard]

[sucharide]

It actually fucks me up to find out I have friends who care about me even when I am not palatable and easy to like???? like . . . what !!!!!!

[pilotstreets]

god. not to be sad online. but im sad online

[ask-darling-xoxo]

Sometimes I hate being an adult. I never realized how exhausting it was. I was always so excited to become an adult and now that I am one, I wish I had enjoyed being a kid a little bit more.

It really does make me savor every bit of free time I have because I’m either working, running errands, or worrying about something and even with my free time it’s spent sleeping half the day. It makes me feel so dead inside; Every day feels the same and I can’t seem to escape the endless cycle that is being an adult.

I miss the free time I had where I could write for hours on my blog, answer questions, rp with friends, do requests, draw and paint and now I just can’t seem to find the time.

How do you do it?? How do you become better at adulting? Because at 19 years old, my current age, it just seems like I’m physically incapable of doing it. I have no hope for myself that I am going to be able to take care of myself when my mother passes away and I am forced to live on my own.

[helennorvilles]

'

[capricorn-witchbitch]

"You look like you're doing well!"

Thanks, just losing weight from stress, permanent eye bags and being so exhausted I feel half dead from trying so hard for the past 4 months. Lovin' life yo

[llycaons]

I was always bad at dressing up but I always loved the spectacle and drama and playful scariness of halloween and the feeling of the season agh next year I WILL watch more halloween movies and I WILL rewatch otgw and I WILL go home again for the famous haunted house and I WILL play spooky music and I WILL make some treats