#csa awareness

[autismvampyre]

you know, I barely think about it anymore

the fact that I'm a csa survivor used to be my whole existence, it was everything I thought about and thought I'd never live to see a day where it did not define me. it felt like that was all I was, just a husk of a person who had everything scraped out before I even knew how to spell my own name. I was very young when I was assaulted, and I used to mourn the little kid that I was and who that kid could've become had she had normal childhood. it was hard

I don't think about it anymore. my skin doesn't crawl every time I see something that once upon a time would've reminded me of him. I'm better, and I'm not normal cause I never will be, but I've healed in a way I never thought I would

what I'm trying to say is that it can get better. one day you might wake up and you won't feel as bad as it did the day before. there is a future for you, and it might not be perfect but it can be good still.

[masons-cum-jar]

CW: CSA

[makeshift-man]

HUGE TW FOR SA IMPLICATION, BRUISES, ABUSE, ETC.

(One is before any rendering)

Art is meant to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comforted.

[nightsister-juisid]

My Roman Empire is thinking how most of my partners have been csa survivors and they end up dumping all their trauma on me, using me to fulfill their weird paraphilias (Most of them infantilizing me because of my appearance) or abusing me physically or verbally.

This has been so common that now I’m wondering if I was SA when I was a child for this pattern to happen nowadays most of the time.

My first homosexual experience was a girl at my school who used to corner me and grope me inappropriately. We were eleven. Nowadays I wonder what kind of behavior she saw at her home to do that on other people.

I think the girl from college and her bf ruined me and I’m actually going insane. My mental health has gone downhill since that.

[crooked-poetry-written]

yk when i think ab my SA i never really think ab how it affected me. then i remember that im missing a year or more of my life bc of it. then i remember that my cousins dad was the one who did it to him and thats why i have no contact with him. i remember that i mightve been SA’d by my other cousin and cousin 1’s dad. i remember that my cousin, who was SA’d by his dad used to make his little brother sleep in his room when i was over that way we’d all be together during the night.

i was that little boys protection those nights, i was my cousins protection those nights. so in some ways i saved them at least some trauma.

yet no one was there to save me from my trauma and i dont hold any grudges but goddamnit i just

i just wish that i couldve been protected to.

[bob-l0b-law]

To the mother who will probably die protecting the eternal man-child son who abused her and her two daughters.

I will not ease your regret

I will not soothe your guilt

The memories haunt me

The wine has been spilt

I’m not sorry you feel like you weren’t enough

That sometimes your best was out of reach

It’s bold to beg for empathy

When no one had enough care for me

I was a victim

I was alone

No one loved me enough to send the monster out of my home.

You force me to grimace and touch him and pretend

You don’t know

Sometimes I dream of his life coming to an end

That day is the day that you’ll truly be free,

Free of the monster that terrorized both you and me.

[it-never-gets-better]

MY BODY TURNED INTO A CORPSE WHEN YOU TOUCHED IT VIOLENTLY.

[sickmuseum]

I am sitting down in the shower It is this dirty type of clean That keeps me trapped in here for hours Still, I scrub and scrub until my body bleeds Convince myself I am coming clean Forget and ignore who I used to be That kid is never coming back

Bathtub - The Front Bottoms.

[aspd-culture]

Welcome back. You’re very informative.

I’m very confused about how numerous people, from you, to other antisocial people speaking from their experiences (some of which I learned are actually friends) to prosocial researchers of ASPD say that antisocial people see relationships as transactional. It’s not weird that you guys see it that way, it’s more like “and prosocials… don’t???” Because I’m certain I’m prosocial. I’m neurodivergent, sure, but no signs of ASPD. So, how do most prosocial people typically view relationships if they’re not transactional?

So I find prosocials and pwASPD both tend to think “but doesn’t everybody” when we hear this - it’s a super undescriptive term - but we’re thinking different things define something as transactional. We also see the reason for that transaction to be different.

From a prosocial generally, they’ll mean “I only want to be around people that ‘don’t drain my energy’, that don’t just take take take, that we mutually enjoy the friendship/relationship and want to be around each other”. That’s kinda their definition of getting something out of it, and they want everyone to get something out of it. If they’re draining you, they want you to be free of it so you can be happy, and the transactions involved can be purely emotional/vibes. The reason they feel this way is a desire for positive and enjoyable social connection; the consequence for an uneven/bad/missing transaction is discomfort and wasting their time in negative experiences and generally feeling bad in association with that person.

PwASPD see those transactions very very literally. There’s no vibes nor emotions in the transactions, those are either a reaction to the transaction or a bonus. We mean that we are getting something tangible or practical out of it. Rides, help with things we can’t or don’t want to do alone, sex, maybe even the social relief from the annoyance of “why don’t you ever talk to anyone?” coming from all sides. We also don’t always care if it’s even on the other person’s end. If they’re ok driving me everywhere/if they do it and don’t say or show they’re uncomfortable, then I will assume they are fine with that piece of the transaction. If I’m taking more than I’m giving and they seem chill with that then I’ll accept it. However, I won’t give them *nothing* and that’s because of our reason for transactions - it’s dangerous otherwise. First off, I have shit I need I can’t get myself as much as it sucks, so I need to be around people. But if we need something from them, what we learned in our childhoods is that we don’t get that for free. There’s always something over your head. A lot of pwASPD had friends or caregivers that would hold favors or even *basic, legally-mandated caregiving* over our heads as though we didn’t deserve it. Often our value was determined as a child by what we provided, and since children can’t provide much, we were worthless and not deserving of good treatment.

This is part of the reason (TW non-descriptive CSA mention, skip to the next paragraph if you want) that people thought ASPD was directly correlated with CSA for a long time - many cases of long term CSA come from either “I’ll give you x/do x for you if you help me with this” or worse, doing something first then saying “but I gave you X!/did X for you! I wouldn’t have if I knew you’d act like this”, often call us selfish if we tried to say no and maybe get aggressive or forceful after, and that is an easy lead-in to our view of interactions.

So a lot of us see it that if we want to be safe/know we can continue to get what we need, we HAVE to be giving them something. If you claim you like being around me “just to be around me” or worse that you’re willing to do something for me “just because I want to”, that’s not safe. You want something from me and I’ll give it to you - just tell me what it is. If you’re not telling me, that means it’s not good or you’re just gonna decide later that I’m selfish. You might hurt me to get what you want and justify it with this. Take something from my side so we’re even, because even means safe. Even means I get access to what I need and you get access to what you need - so now we’re both using this relationship/friendship/etc for something and you wouldn’t wanna mess that up by putting me in danger any more than I’d want to mess it up by putting you in danger.

Of course, not every prosocial sees it the first way and not every pwASPD had those experiences and/or sees it that way. But that’s what I’ve found to be common. If you see “they make me happy” as what your or their end of the transaction is, it’s definitely a prosocial response, maybe with the exception of thinking of it as “getting their brain to dopamine/oxytocin” vs caring how they’re actually feeling. If not, if you need it to be practical, that’s definitely transactional.

It’s important to note this is personal relationships with no practical consequences to ending the relationship - most people see relationships (platonic) with coworkers or managers as transactional and that’s a way I usually explain it to prosocials (“do you deal with your boss bc you like them or bc they sign your check - and would your boss keep you hired if you didn’t do your job because you make them happy just by being there?”). But with a romantic or sexual partner, a friend, etc. this is not a typical view of relationships.

That said - you can *absolutely* not have ASPD and have transactional view of relationships. It’s not a 1:1 thing there; not everyone with ASPD has it and not every prosocial doesn’t. It’s just a really common piece of the puzzle that is this personality disorder.

Edit: ack I’m so sorry I forgot to add the csa tw tags they’re there now.

Plain text below the cut:

So I find prosocials and pwASPD both tend to think “but doesn’t everybody” when we hear this - it’s a super undescriptive term - but we’re thinking different things define something as transactional. We also see the reason for that transaction to be different.

From a prosocial generally, they’ll mean “I only want to be around people that ‘don’t drain my energy’, that don’t just take take take, that we mutually enjoy the friendship/relationship and want to be around each other”. That’s kinda their definition of getting something out of it, and they want everyone to get something out of it. If they’re draining you, they want you to be free of it so you can be happy, and the transactions involved can be purely emotional/vibes. The reason they feel this way is a desire for positive and enjoyable social connection; the consequence for an uneven/bad/missing transaction is discomfort and wasting their time in negative experiences and generally feeling bad in association with that person.

PwASPD see those transactions very very literally. There’s no vibes nor emotions in the transactions, those are either a reaction to the transaction or a bonus. We mean that we are getting something tangible or practical out of it. Rides, help with things we can’t or don’t want to do alone, sex, maybe even the social relief from the annoyance of “why don’t you ever talk to anyone?” coming from all sides. We also don’t always care if it’s even on the other person’s end. If they’re ok driving me everywhere/if they do it and don’t say or show they’re uncomfortable, then I will assume they are fine with that piece of the transaction. If I’m taking more than I’m giving and they seem chill with that then I’ll accept it. However, I won’t give them *nothing* and that’s because of our reason for transactions - it’s dangerous otherwise. First off, I have shit I need I can’t get myself as much as it sucks, so I need to be around people. But if we need something from them, what we learned in our childhoods is that we don’t get that for free. There’s always something over your head. A lot of pwASPD had friends or caregivers that would hold favors or even *basic, legally-mandated caregiving* over our heads as though we didn’t deserve it. Often our value was determined as a child by what we provided, and since children can’t provide much, we were worthless and not deserving of good treatment.

This is part of the reason (TW non-descriptive CSA mention, skip to the next paragraph if you want) that people thought ASPD was directly correlated with CSA for a long time - many cases of long term CSA come from either “I’ll give you x/do x for you if you help me with this” or worse, doing something first then saying “but I gave you X!/did X for you! I wouldn’t have if I knew you’d act like this”, often call us selfish if we tried to say no and maybe get aggressive or forceful after, and that is an easy lead-in to our view of interactions.

So a lot of us see it that if we want to be safe/know we can continue to get what we need, we HAVE to be giving them something. If you claim you like being around me “just to be around me” or worse that you’re willing to do something for me “just because I want to”, that’s not safe. You want something from me and I’ll give it to you - just tell me what it is. If you’re not telling me, that means it’s not good or you’re just gonna decide later that I’m selfish. You might hurt me to get what you want and justify it with this. Take something from my side so we’re even, because even means safe. Even means I get access to what I need and you get access to what you need - so now we’re both using this relationship/friendship/etc for something and you wouldn’t wanna mess that up by putting me in danger any more than I’d want to mess it up by putting you in danger.

Of course, not every prosocial sees it the first way and not every pwASPD had those experiences and/or sees it that way. But that’s what I’ve found to be common. If you see “they make me happy” as what your or their end of the transaction is, it’s definitely a prosocial response, maybe with the exception of thinking of it as “getting their brain to dopamine/oxytocin” vs caring how they’re actually feeling. If not, if you need it to be practical, that’s definitely transactional.

It’s important to note this is personal relationships with no practical consequences to ending the relationship - most people see relationships (platonic) with coworkers or managers as transactional and that’s a way I usually explain it to prosocials (“do you deal with your boss bc you like them or bc they sign your check - and would your boss keep you hired if you didn’t do your job because you make them happy just by being there?”). But with a romantic or sexual partner, a friend, etc. this is not a typical view of relationships.

That said - you can *absolutely* not have ASPD and have transactional view of relationships. It’s not a 1:1 thing there; not everyone with ASPD has it and not every prosocial doesn’t. It’s just a really common piece of the puzzle that is this personality disorder.

Edit: ack I’m so sorry I forgot to add the csa tw tags they’re there now.

[ash-says]

A Blunt Reminder :

Men treating me with care, respect, love and so called goody goody behaviour doesn't necessarily mean they actually have good intentions towards me. It can be a set up to take sexual advantage of me. Not every guy portraying himself as a nice guy is truly a 'NICE GUY'.

[thee-radio-host-is-a-kookaburra]

Hey if you're Jewish, trans, a CSA survivor, or just in general a sensible person, block and report xenosatan-guevarist. They're a proud nazi who talks about how it's okay to wear swastikas and hate symbols because "they don't harm anyone." They also actively advocate for the legalization of cp and beastiality.

Get fascists and predators off of this platform.

[artistakai]

SA Awareness Month

Don't forget a lot of survivors or victims are still silent. A lot of us are still fearful, shameful, or just unsure. Just bc we never spoke doesn't mean it never happened, so please don't invalidate us as any lesser, we are still struggling and still human.

Create a safe place to talk or be around, sometimes, online is the only one safe place to speak, even if it's not much or vague. Love and support is enough to be seen and heard, we just need to know that we are safe.

[my-yellow-world]

I just want everything to go away... The pain, the memories, the sadness, the nightmares, the panic attacks, the hopelessness, the fear, the hungry, all the voices in my mind. I'm just tired and I don't want to be fighting all my life.

[meow222sposts]

being sexually assaulted as a child has been the most confusing experience of my life.

to learn sex without having any concept of it has messed me up in more ways than i'm aware of.

to feel an orgasm so young.

to have my life threatened,

to be stretched,

bruised,

bit,

spit on.

to become an adult at the age of seven.

to know fear intimately.

have it breathe down my neck.

to be numb,

stiff,

silent,

to disassociate,

and own the world's shame at once.

[it-never-gets-better]

NO ONE GETS IT. NO ONE KNOWS HOW IT FEELS LIVING IN THIS BODY.

[sickmuseum]

milk and honey - rupi kaur.