#cycle of abuse

[craycraybluejay]

I also heavily resent the ever-present implication in mainstream media that at all touches on trauma that we cannot have any sympathy for Bad Victims. That it's evil to write a sympathetic Bad Victim. Hell, that it's bad to portray one at all at times. Writing a victim of trauma who's an addict or self-destructive is already an edge case-- writing trauma survivors who end up actually hurting someone else, being chronically "treatment"-resistant or having inconvenient ptsd, perpetuate the cycle, or are just kind of a total dick is considered an evil move. Instead of like. An actually complex and interesting artistic choice.

Idk. It pisses me off a lot how often Bad Victims[TM] are brushed under the rug and if you dare to speak of them/make art of them, let alone SYMPATHIZE with them you're an irredeemable monster. And that's just fictional characters. Don't even get me started on the way people treat actual people who have ptsd in a way that's at all inconvenient and problematic in their opinion.

[anotherdarkiboi]

Is anyone going to talk about how Cazador was also both victim and abuser? How as Vellioth's spawn, he tried to reach out to a former friend (likely for help) and then Vellioth made Cazador watch as he drained his friend dry as punishment (and how Cazador locked Astarion up in a tomb for a year after being unwilling to kill a "darling boy" and trying to run)? How Cazador tried to rebel against his master and failed, being impaled for 11 years after (and how in Cazador's journals, he records all the actions of his spawn “with particular attention paid to Astarion”, and it's only in recent entries when Astarion disobeys him and goes missing that he “betrays any emotion” and is furious, writing about how he tortured Astarion's "siblings" for not finding him and wanting to torture Astarion himself)? How Cazador kills Vellioth during the Rite of Perfect Slaughter (just as Astarion kills Cazador during his Ascension ritual)?

How Astarion says that Cazador took particular pleasure in torturing him because his “screams sounded the sweetest”, but it's more likely that Cazador saw himself in Astarion from when he was Vellioth's spawn? How Cazador says "You are mine. Forever." in Astarion's nightmare, and how Ascended Astarion says "That's what you want, isn't it? To be mine, forever?" to Tav?

The parallels. The cycle. Augh.

[magnetothemagnificent]

A reminder for anyone (including myself) who might need it:

In order to break the cycle of dysfunctional immediate families, you need cooperation with your family. It's not on you alone.

If there's a toxic cycle of broken parent-child relationships, it's not your job to maintain a harmful relationship with your parent/s to "break the cycle".

If there's a toxic cycle of broken sibling relationships, it's not your job to maintain a harmful relationship with your sibling/s to "break the cycle".

You need more than one person to heal interfamilial estrangement and dysfunction. It's not on you alone. If your parent/s or sibling/s don't also put in an effort to break the cycle, it won't be broken.

Taking on the burden all on your own won't fix anything and will just lead to more hurt.

[furiousgoldfish]

Abusive parents have 3 modes. First is complete neglect, you don't exist and could be painfully dying all they care. Second is 'I need to use you for something so better do as you're told or else', and the third is absolute and complete hatred where you're responsible for everything horrid in the world and they're taking out their entire rage out on you. You're either non-existent, or a tool, or a target.

Fourth secret thing is when they pretend they care about you in front of others, or give you a gift, so you feel confused about whether they're abusive or not.

[biceratops7]

Y’all for real,

I need less fics/ concepts of Ed going all Kraken on Stede’s ass and waaay more stubborn determination to not be like his father.

One of the best things about their relationship is that Ed is so fucking gentle with him. And he’s a pretty naturally amiable guy, but it’s this special kind of carefulness reserved specifically for Stede.

He goes so out of his way to speak kindly to him, touch him only with affection and reassurance, vocally express his delight at all of Stede’s silly little habits. I think the harshest we’ve ever heard Ed be with him is when he’s being a dick about the map burning up, and it lasts for two minutes before he’s like “oof, that was so cringe” and spends the rest of the episode making sure Stede feels happy and appreciated.

It’s the small shows of care for his well being too. He doesn’t just generally want Stede alive and mostly uninjured, he doesn’t want him to hurt himself with the lantern sparks, he arranges for someone to come get Stede just so he can sleep a little and feel rested for the road ahead

Fuck Ed doesn’t even want him to feel scared, or think bad things about himself.

Cause he’s lived his whole adult life as a pirate, a literal pirate, and still the most impactful source of pain and trauma he’s endured to this day was watching his mother be mistreated, the terrible choice he had to make to protect her. Ed’s mother coped with her abuse by teaching her son that nothing can get better and that they were designed by God to be undeserving of comfort and safety, something that low key really fucked him up. More Ed continuing to nuke the cycle of abuse please! If the events of episode 10 are Too Big and he messes up, I get it, healing isn’t linear, but holy shit please stop letting it go unexamined. Don’t ignore this context.

I don’t think that resolved look is just for promising to end his mother’s suffering, but also “I will not recreate it.”

[toothmarqed]

LEARN TO LICK IT OFF OF KNIVES

Roman & Logan - Succession (2018)

[zykamiliah]

svsss and the cycle of abuse

so in the three iterations of the cycle of abuse, there's always four parties at play:

-the abuser who is also a figure of authority, and is therefore abusing their power

-the abused and/or unwanted child

-and the naive party/favored child, who is doted on by the abuser and who is blind to the abuser's abusive behaviour

-the abused child draws comfort and protection from the favored child, while the latter seems to love them. this love will worsen the abuse since the abuser doesn't like that the abused child gets on well with the favored child.

-there's also a passive party who knowingly allows the abuse, thus being passively complicit to it

not featured in the diagram: the environment and people in the abuser's cycle also exhibit abusive tendencies, since they emulate the authority figure (in each iteration, those are the men at Qiu Manor, Ming Fan and the other Qing Jing Peak disciples, and Bingge's followers, respectively).

as to the question of who is worse, who did the most damage: it's complicated. in my opinion, they were equally awful in their own, personal ways. the scope of the power the abuser holds is important here. bingge is a heir of qjl's and sj's abuse cycles, thus he looks to be the more evil. in reality, one couldn't exist without the other and if the roles were swapped, they would do as much damage as bingge.

adding @treasurewoodbox's tags from another post because I feel they summarize the topic beautifully:

[neuroticboyfriend]

okay. i finally found something on parents love bombing that is not ableist against cluster B's or encouraging parents to love bomb. it's in the form of a comment on this reddit post from 6 years ago. here's the comment, from u/Glaucus92:

Lovebombing is part of the cycle of abuse. The cycle you'll usually find is this one:

Calm -> Tension building -> Incident -> Reconcilliation -> Calm

Lovebombing is part of the "Reconcilliation" part. After an incident, a victim will usually try to confront, give consequences to, or withdraw form the abuser. In order to keep the victim close, to keep power over them, an abuser may lovebomb their victim. It is not linked to a specifc role in an abisive dynamic. It is a technique used by abuser as a reaction to 'losing' a victim.

The abuser will (attempt to) be the person you always wanted them to be. That can be the parent that listens to you when you talk about your interest. It can be that they tell you how proud they are of you, how they've always been proud, etc. It can be that they buy you gifts or give you money. This behaviour isn't exclusive to abusive parents either; think of how an abusive spouse might organize a wonderful date or get an expensive gift for their victims.

The goal of the lovebombing is to give you a little taste of what you usually never get from them, be it attention, financial aid, praise, compliments, whatever. By giving you that tiny bit, they are basically pretending that they can be this nice, loving parent. The underlying unspoken message of course being that things could be like this, if only you tried harder, or weren't like x, or were more like y. Because without the realization that they are abusive, it doesn't make sense for them to purposefully hurt you and then be really nice to you.

Lovebombing insipres false hope that if only you could be better, the abuser wouldn't be abusive. It also helps wiht the gaslighting; when they do all these nice things for you in that moment, you might think that you over-exagerated the previous abuse. It's usually only when you look back and realise that all these 'nice' things only happened when you were upset with them or withdrew from them.

Since you asked for examples:

A parent who is usually very disinterested in your life suddenly makes a lot of effort to discuss you hobbies with you.

A parent might start to give you a lot of compliments all of a sudden, or tell stories about how they've told others about how amazing you are.

Parents might give you gifts for no reason. Stating that they just wanted to be nice, or just thought of you when they saw it.

They might start calling or visiting a lot, especially when they previously didn't. Saying things about how much they miss you.

Trying to harken back to 'the good old days'. Sending you pictures of happy childhood memories or recounting old stories.

It might be straight up bribery. A conflict happens, and after the intial blow up you are given cash/money to buy something nice or becasue they ust want to help.

A parent might try to smooth things over by taking you to a place or on a trip you wanted to go to.

I know some of these might sound like perfectly normal things, and they would be coming from non-abusive people. It becomes an abusive tactic when it happens more often than not (or in greater intesity) after a conflict has occured. It also almost always happens in lieu of an actual apology. By lovebombing instead of apologizing, the abuser doesn't have to take responisbility for their action. The unspoken agreement that governs this is that by accepting the gift/loveboming, the victim doesn't hold the abuser accountable.

[hushpuppy5-blog]

"Why do we romanticize the dead? Why can't we be honest about them? Especially moms. They're the most romanticized of anyone.

Moms are saints, angels by merely existing. NO ONE could possibly understand what it's like to be a mom. Men will never understand. Women with no children will never understand. No one but moms know the hardship of motherhood, and we non-moms must heap nothing but praise upon moms because we lowly, pitiful non-moms are mere peasants compared to the goddesses we call mothers.

Jennette McCurdy, I'm Glad My Mom Died

This book is difficult to read, but it has so many gems like this one. Of course, there are people still saying that she shouldn't talk like this about her mother, as if the person who abused her in more ways than one is owed that level of grace in death. If her mother was still alive, she still wouldn't be free to talk about her experiences without judgement. Mothers are deified just for popping out a few kids, even if they turn out to be severely maladjusted. Jeanette has already made it clear that she doesn't intend on having kids in the near future, which many people seem to have an issue with. They think having kids means that she has healed from her trauma, which is a sinister mode of thought. Her refusing to do so already make her more sensible in my eyes compared to the women who will still have kids and wind up continuing that cycle of abuse, rather than healing from it and staying childfree.

And it's funny how mothers and fathers can come online and complain about their kids and even outright say that they hate them just for being born (TikTok is a breeding ground for these attention-seekers). However, when their kids call them out on how terrible they were as parents (or will even cut them off completely) they aren't given that same freedom to do so without the backlash of being "ungrateful".

And people are wondering why the number of parricide cases have been sky-rocketing lately...

[fanatics4l]

i honestly don't think we realize how fucked up it was of max to DRUG her brother with something she wasn't even sure would do to him- and not to mention, she literally stabs him in the neck with it. i get he was going crazy on steve but there were probably sane ways to get him to back off instead of sedating him like he's some sort of wild animal with rabies. and the whole "say you understand" scene was so unnecessary. she already knocked him out like a dog and then she goes onto talking to him like one? clearly she picked it up from billy's dad. hate to break it to the antis but billy has never done anything that severe to max. everything he's done to her is typical older brother behaviour and only seems a little meaner than usual because they don't already have a good relationship.

also these kids literally leave billy knocked out in the middle of someone's living room where a demodog is stashed in the fridge. he could've died. when he woke up, he was definitely disoriented and terrified because he didn't understand what was going on. his car was missing, max was missing. nobody explained why she was even with all those teenage boys in the first place and then suddenly she's disappeared with them? he probably thought the worst. we never got the aftermath of that whole scene. did billy walk home, pumped up with drugs? did max come back for him? did anyone think to check on him and how his body was doing after being sedated with a dose that no one knew the severity of? the entire situation was fucked up and not at all badass lmao.

[thekingofwinterblog]

Sasha's Parents

Allright, so thanks to the diary we finally got some definite info on Sasha's parents. Let's dissect it, and analyze how the divorce might have turned her into the person she is today.

According to Anne, Sasha's parents divorced when she was around four- or five-years-old. Her father remarried and doesn't seem to have had any other kids, while her mother has a long-term boyfriend who has kids of his own.

So what does this tell us? Well, the first thing we have to do is speculate which of Sasha's parents has custody of her, because knowing that, we can draw a lot of conclusions.

Personally, I am almost certain that it's her father, for reason i'll go into below.

Firstly, let's analyze the events of the divorce, before trying to figure out how the events of the series relates to the original plan the creators had to have an episode where Sasha reveals the full details of her backstory to Anne.

Mr and Mrs Waybright divorced when Sasha was 5 years old, but the implication we get from what little we know about the two people involved suggests that this wasn't simply a case of two people realizing things weren't working out... Because the implications seems to be that Mrs Waybright left her husband for another man... Who already had kids of his own, and who she very explicitly did not marry.

Why is this important? Because it explains everything we ever needed to know about Sasha's seething, burning desire to always be in control, and more importantly, on top.

Because in Sasha's 5 year old mind, seeing her mom leave her dad for another man, who already had a bunch of kids, while abandoning her, is tantamount to saying that she was worthless in her mother's eyes. She didn't measure up. Clearly her mom cared more about these kids than her... When in reality, it was the new boyfriend she actually cared about, not the kids. Neither the new ones... Or her own flesh and blood.

It also explains perfectly why Sasha's reaction to the Plantars "Stealing" Anne from her turned her downright murderous. In her mind it was basically history repeating itself again. Her losing someone she loved to another family she knew nothing about.

No wonder this girl hated the very concept of family.

Meanwhile, her dad married another woman, which which can safely assume was not a warm, loving relationship. More likely than not, whether this woman wanted to try and be a mother to Sasha, it's abundantly clear that that wasn't gonna happen. After the divorce, Sasha would have rejected any and all attempts at replacing her mother, and that stuck.

Her eternal quest to make Anne and Marcy happy is also explained by this. Sasha wants to make the people she loves happy. She wants them to like her, to appreciate her, to be rewarded with love and attention by people she loves and cares about.

But while this does explain a lot(Her control issues, her disdain for family, her non existent love for said family) there is still some things it does not explain, or at least there seems to be something more we aren't told.

So, let's put forth another question, to explain the things that a simple, if ugly divorce does not explain.

Was Sasha abused by her parents?

Throughout the series, Sasha continously says some extremely heavy lines, that though they fit perfectly with what is happening in the moment, all seem to be as a response to something else that happened previously in Sasha's life, that we just don't have the context for.

When Sasha hits her absolute lowest point, after having seemingly destroyed the only thing she truly cared about for Good and all, Sasha very deliberately refers to herself as belonging in the Trash, and that it's all someone like her deserves, in a tone that suggests she is accepting something she felt deep in her heart was innevitable.

That could be her being overly dramatic... But it could be something else.

Like she had been told that this was all she amounted to, a worthless brat who no one would love, who belonged in the trash.

Not while Anne and Marcy are getting by withouth me.

This line is pretty clear in it's meaning, but again, the way it's said and worded suggests it's referencing something someone else said at some point.

Hey anne... Maybe you're better off without me.

Sasha's famous line when she decides to kill herself is an important one, and one where she proves that she is willing to lay down her life for anne if it comes to that.

But knowing the circumstances with her parents divorce, it's hard not to read more into it. That Sasha had a genuine fear that her mother didn't just leave her, but that she was better off withouth her.

That could be projecting... but it doesn't have to be. Sasha could have heard it straight from the horse's mouth.

End of discussion

This one is absolutely referencing a line. This is a line Sasha uses to shut down any arguments Anne has when Sasha wants the discussion to end.

But that isn't something kids tend to learn on their own. They learn that by example. By mimicking others.

So before going into speculation of how Sasha may or may not have been abused, lets finish by pointing out the biggest argument for it.

The incredibly unsettling, and unnatural way Sasha does not care about her Parents in any way.

Sasha makes it abundantly clear throughout the entire series that she does not care about her parents. At all. Her relationship with them isn't a complicated one. It's nonexistent. As far as she cares, it does not exist.

That is incredibly unnatural behavior from a child. Even the most abused, or neglected of children will usually have some form of natural attachment to their parents, or parental figures. It's simply the way human beings are made.

It takes A LOT to break that bond completely, even for an adult.

But Sasha isn't an adult. She is a child. And yet her bond to her parents is as far as she is concerned for most of the series, broken beyond any repair.

And she doesn't care to try and fix it. That all on it's own speaks volumes of just how BAD her relationship with her folks are.

So, let's get to speculating on what exactly the kind of abuse Sasha might have gone through with her parents, because there is probably two very distinct kinds from each of her parents.

Of the two, I would guess that if she was abused, the most visceral part came from her mom.

Most of Sasha's biggest issues are clearly a result of her mother leaving her, and so this would make sense.

So, what sort of abuse might Sasha have suffered at the hands of her mother that broke her down so badly, given the woman left her behind, and so probably didn't interact with her much beyond this?

If i had to guess, all of it probably stems for what happened during the divorce, where her mom essentially put all her cards on the table, and let her real feelings be put on full display.

And there are several reasons her mom might have had to lash out at her own child. It could be as simple as the fact she used Sasha to hurt her now ex-husband. Rubbing in that he was stuck with her now.

It could be that sasha was an unplanned child that she didn't want, and had secretly resented for all five years of her life.

She may have been pressured into having her by her Mr Waybright, and now that she no longer had to even try to make him happy, she made it abundantly clear how much she never wanted the damned child he put in her.

Or she could flat out not have liked Sasha, based solely on her personality.

Whatever the reasons, it's clear that the events of the divorce shattered Sasha to her core, and would be essential into forming her into the person she was at the start of the series.

Having one of the people that Sasha(Who is a person who forms STRONG attachments) loves more than any other, turn on her completely, and reveal she always hated her would probably have done the trick.

Now, let's move on to Mr Waybright.

I am very certain that Sasha probably learned the "End. Of. Discussion." From him, as their relationship seems to have been a different kind of breakdown.

Namely that he seems to have given up on Sasha, giving her a level of personal control over her life that is downright irresponsible, letting her throw parties on the regular, seemingly giving her free access to cash as she needs it, and having failed to instill any discipline into his kid.

These are all classic symptoms of a relationship where the parent has given up, and simply gives the kid what they want so they don't have to deal with them.

But was this always the case?

The simple fact is, that with what we know of Mrs Waybright, the extreme destruction of her relationship with Sasha makes sense. There are details one has to speculate on, but there is a clear line to follow from point A to B.

Not so with Mr Waybright.

We know where they ended up, the turning point, but not the steps between.

The only thing we have to go on, Is that amongst her many, many unusual traits for someone so young, Sasha has a much older person's view on discipline. Namely she does not respond to it, because she does not respect the person delivering it, be they teachers or Grime.

It does not take a genius to figure out that this probably stems from her relationship with her father.

The simplest, and most likely explanation is that Mr Waybright attempts at parenting probably involved a lot of discipline, and attempts to instill Sasha with a sense dread at a phrace with the meaning of "This conversation is over".

In this he obviously failed, Because for whatever reason(probably something that happened during the divorce) Sasha does not respect him... But Sasha in turn seems to have learned this very kind of tactic herself from him.

Mr Waybright thusly seems to have had more of a sense of familial obligation to Sasha... At least trying to instill her with something resembling discipline... Until finally just giving up on her all together and just letting her do as she pleased.

All in all whether there was actual abuse involved, or just a child's entire world crumbling due to a very ugly divorce, I really, really wish we'd gotten Sasha's backstory episode.

[redtippedfox]

Emilie Agreste: wielder of the Peacock Miraculous

A caged peacock who’s wings were clipped.

A broken miraculous or a dark secret that killed her.

No one but the dead know.

[thepowerisyouth]

MONEY / FINANCE STRESS CONTENT WARNING, this next line is unfortunately quite stressful about money so this was an important warning for me to add:

This is also less for the random strangers on the internet who have no reason to trust my advice but more for the 10-15 people I know personally who trust my money advice based on prior experience and Ive sent them my blog link in the last month or two

US stock market is about to tank. On a global perspective its stupidly overpriced because markets like China are hitting 5 year lows (as in we've increased our stock market over 2x since "COVID lows", but their market is even lower than it was then.

Timing is hard but it is entirely possible yesterday was the peak of the market. Might also not tank for 6 months.

Market psychology is fucking weird tho so please absolutely dont 'short' anything, which is basically the same as 'buying puts'. Michael Burry nearly bankrupted all his friends, family, and random investors by insisting on 'shorting' things based on knowledge of impending crisis.

Just sell everything. I mean literally everything. Bond etfs might go up but youd have to have eyes glued to the charts to sell in time. Gold wont do, neither will bitcoin. Their negative correlation to stocks isnt really a thing anymore.

Get every etf, stock, whatever into cash in the brokerage account, then move it out of the banks/brokerage firms and into something physically in front of you because we are, in fact, in another 'historical period of bank runs' its just not quite at the peak yet.

Not trying to increase anxiety beyond nessecary-- its just that any, single bank can immediately freeze your money-- leaving it up to the Federal Government to pay you back-- and it might possibly be the case that youd have to rely on whats called a "bank bail in" to see your savings again.

Not a fun situation to be in, even if it wont happen to most people its just safe practice to do this during a "historical period of bank runs"

----------------

This blog is basically my diary of my thoughts (suprise suprise). But Im an open book, privileged (but poor) little white boy with complex societal/generational abuse and very little home problems so lets fucking go theres a whole mormon cargo van to unpack

Definitely recommend tags Im terrible at them.

---

To those reading this, if you have ever met me in real-life or on the internet than you have taught me varying degrees of information which can be randomly retrieved by my brain at any time depending on current CPU performance. Thoughts of my loving husband have occupied my headspace probably 95% of my time since 14 so he has absolutely taught me at least 100x more than anyone else in the world.

When I say "I", oftentimes Im thinking about "me and my husband", or even sometimes "me and my friends/family", or even sometimes "me and society"--- but I am not always 100% aware of the current headspace environment and/or beliefs of the minds of those around me without feedback

---

There are currently over 8 billion individual varieties of the global human language spoken within the mind. Lets start translating them all. Misunderstood words become mean labels.

I fucking hate mean labels

"Math wiz" = racism and/or classism and/or gender shit. Fuck that shit

When a person is niched off into one part of an 8 billion population human society, it becomes impossible to not "live in a bubble". Bubbles change in size constantly even if not visibly observed. Bubbles can be different sizes depending on your current day-to-day thoughts of your own society. Bubbles must pop. Enlightenment implies life only gets better the more times ya pop and lock it

My path away from purely mathematics, logic, and scientific theory began when I met my husband, and for the first time in my life it became important to me not to be an asshole to everyone around me

Ive been told (only after I started dating my traumatized husband tho and helped him heal a lot) that I'm a natural communicator-- and all my life I found myself listening and learning to everything and everyone around me trying to understand both their and my own motivations-- then I like to garble them up and spit 'em out. My memory recall ability is wonky tho and fluctuates highly with nutrient intake-- I'll get into that later

I wish I could have a million years to read every blog on tumblr. I really do. Connecting & communating is extremely important for understanding one another but it takes time

I had an extremely unique childhood (who hasnt lol), enough so to isolate myself quite a lot through sheer dumb luck. My mom is also everyone's favorite school teacher so of course I was learning a lot from a young age. Luckily I glued myself to the first person who wanted to glue themselves to me equally & we grew exponentially closer to eternity

If its still not clear: my husband and I are bored and love chatting with people, but like most internet loving freaks my mouth don't work sometimes well but my fingies do. My ears got fluff a lot but I got eyes for LEDs like a hawk. Wish they werent LED tho

I also have a naturally short sleep cycle (i.e. extra time for this), and I really wont be offended or weirded out by someone reading through and liking 20+ or whatever of my posts at once randomly. Stories are supposed to be read in chunks, and I think of this blog as a story & also workspace for my thoughts that Id love to see which chapters everyone has read through. Also I love (and only respond positively to) positive feedback, yet also suggestions for ways to improve my "theorums". As in, good faith discussions are totally welcome on any post.

For my 50 year old parents reading my blog so lovingly in their limited evening time-- you can sort by tags to see what topics your familiar with, if you play around with the search function while on my page. Mom. Show dad how to do it

In the very, very bottom of my blog I dont even think I managed to tag shit properly-- but its the roughdraft workings of the philosophy, as well as my own logical framework for answering lifes questions. Its 2 months ago so I might not even be writing according to my own works down there anymore idk I change fast sometimes

Last thing for now here is that I was always criticized by teachers for not showing my work, and for not reviewing my tests before turning in, and I pushed back hard because nearly every time I went over and corrected a mistake-- I saw I most often got it right the first fucking time on a pure hunch. I act on impulse when I'm not meditating mostly for efficiency purposes because I believe I'm correct, but remain open to emotionally positive feedback so I can help remove all doubt.

-------

This might turn into my 'life story' post, as its already going there. Heres what I have so far in the way of my knowledge of my family before I was brought into existence, and my "earliest memories":

Family context:

I dont know jack shit. Nobody talks about it at all.

Here's my own observations Ive made using the framework and perceptive filters I was given--

My whole family is white Texans.

Ancestory is slaveowners of course, further back is a very likely direct parent-child descendent line from the most famous inbred british royalty of the 13th century i.e. King John, whose brother was the arab genociding Richard.

I would call my immediate family as upper poverty class. Its more like poverty with extra privileges cause mental health stigma was the only thing holding them back not other shit too.

As children we had a lot of very privileged opportunities because my parents made a lot of sacrifices to try and bring us back up the class ladder. Lets look into that generational trauma issue

My dads parents (born in the early 40s, dont know the year exactly. I think '43 or '44) were more upper middle class, pretty high income. Owned an insurance business that was very successful by the early 2000s at least. My grandpa is described to me as a "monster" and "violently abusive". I have a single memory of him screaming at me as a young child and I was cowering under a desk, so I really believe it. No other stories at all to provide context.

-- I gotta split this section off I realized I wrote the next thing about post-me context Ill need to move this part lower down later--

My grandpa got early onset dementia, my dad didnt notice in time, and my grandpa bankrupted his successful company and lost several million of dollars to "scammers and sexy ladies."

My dad found out around 2015-16 or so. He told me a little bit after telling me my grandparents were getting divorced. My dad managed to scrape together about $200,000 which is being sued for by the IRS actively.

(He split that money in two, and entrusted me tell him how to invest half in safe value stocks that I handpicked as well as a calculated risk allocation to bonds which we sold for 30% profit the second the market crashed. He gave the other half to a brokerage advisor. I never met the advisor but saw the results. Dont get me started on how the other dude did with that money-- we started this endeavor in January 2020.)

Personally I also dont believe that its possible to spend an entire fortune on scammers and strippers, so Id love to see his books and figure out what the hell went wrong with that asshole. I have a hunch I know something more than anyone else ("Enron", guys, we're talking about an insurance company in HOUSTON, in the 2000s) but I will never be sure without the books.

----

Back to other family--

I do not know a single thing about my grandma on my dads side. She raised me quite a lot, but yeah I literally have only heard her life described to me as "she was a housewife"

On my moms side, my Mimi (also born 1940s but slightly younger so I think 1946 or 1947) came from a divorced, upper middle class family. In 1964-65, She and her step mom both got knocked up the same year so she watched her divorced dad remarry to said step mom when she was 18-19 and getting a shotgun marriage herself, so you can imagine what that was like. The "biological" of the two moms was a very good mom and very queer from what I hear. She died when I was a baby, from lung cancer. Thats all I know. My mimi raised me quite a lot, nearly equally as much as my mom did

My mom's dad, my Papa, came from a rural farming family in East Texas. Dont know much else of anything, but he and his siblings were named "Billy, Bobby, and Betty". As in, they are what everyone likes to call "hicks"

--

Moving onto my direct parents now. I know a little more about them of course, but since we're getting closer in age to the present-- I think itll be easier to describe my understanding as common stereotypes. If its unclear what I mean definitely feel free to ask, but I'll probably say "I dont really know"

Not much else is relevant other than knowing that my moms family was the mormon one, but that as soon as my dad was love-bombed by the church he joined to. Mormons were also different in the 90s I'm told.

My dad struggled with being one of the "crazy schizos" of the 90s. As in, very traumatized, upset, and gaslit by the government and his parents. Must have done a damn good job dealing with it by the time he was in his late 20s and I popped out cause he was never a "bad dad" to me at all. Definitely yelled and was more angry at times, but less than any other friends parents Ive ever met, and from what I remember he came into my room at night and apologized to me literally every single time within like 5-10 minutes. I know pretty much nothing about him pre-me. He was a tradesman my whole life and specialized in remodeling kitchens & bathrooms (the 'dirty work of construction'). All his initial clientele were the rich people my grandma lived near and was friends with.

My mom would have been extremely queer-presenting and posting on tumblr if born in the year 2000, but was born in early 70s, and was a raegan teen in high-school in Texas during the satanic panic-- she presents completely cis, straight, but has body dysmorphia issues. Thats about you need to know about those issues I'm sure my tumblr folks can assume the rest and be perfectly correct. Cause thats about all I know too and I'm assuming the rest about my own mother

--- Earliest memories

I think a lot of people face doubt about their own earliest memories, maybe hearing the way I connect the images of these events in my head to my emotions I felt will help others do the same.

----

Two disclosers about me & my current healthcare discoveries before moving on

1) My only "major" childhood trauma is loneliness. I have a partner now (started dating early high school, nearing 10 years together now) who was just as lonely and we are glued to each others side constantly, and have made our life work great that way. So don't feel too bad reading this, I'm only able to write it down because Ive healed that trauma and can dig this stuff up with no issues to validate the emotions I felt even as a child

1) I believe I have a genetic trait that is only just getting discovered. There are something like 6 discovered mutations that hold this similar trait so far, and its just basically chronic insomia.

It being a genetic trait tracks with how my mom describes me as never settling into a normal sleep pattern at 6 months old, having absurd amounts of nightmares and death anxiety keeping me up at night as a child, and I still dont sleep at any given time. I average 2 hours less sleep than my husband, who averages 7-8 now that he isnt actively being abused at home.

Going to get sequenced but even if negative I'd probably just be a 7th mutation, as they only found the other 6 genes via case study.

The scientists whove discovered it call it "Familial Natural Short Sleeper", if you desire to look it up. They describe the trait like its the best possible thing in the world. Well... terminally chronic insomia is not the best thing in THIS world thats for sure.

---------

My "earliest memories"

These arent ranked by time accurately of course. Took enough effort digging through my brain to turn them up, not like Ive got a 2003 calendar stuffed in here as well.

I did do my best to sort by first memory but it also might be sorted by the order at which I recovered the memories as being one of my "earliest" when I was a child and asked such things

1. Pure emptiness. I can only describe it as dissociation. I can remember nothing about the environment around me, except feeling suddenly sucked out of it, seeing only darkness, feeling almost a ringing in my ears and the deepest dread possible. This same feeling followed me in life for a little while, but started to take more visual shape when I was an adolescent, until at some point I would see myself sitting in a chair alone in a room that is infinitely sized but that slowly gets darker the further out you go. I cant remember what exact "real-world" event caused this feeling to ever happen each time it did. I just can remember having it happen occasionally when I was awake and doing things. Definitely dissociation. (If you are willing to believe me further I think its just probably "lights out" and being scared of that)

1. Riding a mattress down the stairs. I kind of remember two images, one is the tunnel vision of going high speed down the stairs and the other would be from looking back up at the stairs when I was done going down. Totally fun, probably my first rollar coaster ride. I might remember my siblings laughing too but it wouldnt be because I can remember the actual laughing-- but I can remember feeling the joy of being in a group of people laughing. At the time, my parents were selling the house so thats why I also remember it being a completely empty carpeted room that we were riding down into

2. My brother smashing his head repeatedly into the refrigerator for 'fun' and someone saying "wow he has a hard head" or something along those lines. I was learning english I cant remember exactly what they said but that was definitely the meaning I took from their words. I think this memory is strong, because I was truly very curious as to why my brother was just running at full speed, head down, and headbutting a hard surface. The words someone said after that must have been one of my first 'answers'

3. Watching my siblings play in rare Houston snow. Not much remembering there actually. Probably just thought it was mezmorizing to watch as I just really remember a picture and feeling peace

4. Will add more later.

[internet-goblin]

GIRL! DON'T LISTEN TO HIM!!!

HE'S USING HIS TRAUMA TO MANIPULATE YOU!!! HE DID IT BEFORE! GIRL!!! DON'T LOOK INTO HIS PUPPY EYES, IT'S AN ACT!!! YOU CAN'T FIX HIM, GIRL! HE'S CONTINUING THE CYCLE OF ABUUUUSE!!!

[furiousgoldfish]

No matter how horrid and despicable the abuse is, the abusers will always insist it's all because of you. It's because you're doing something wrong, you're not doing good enough for them, you don't love them enough, you don't love them unconditionally, you're not showing that you love them through obedience enough, you're not considerate enough, and if only, if only you had more love for them, understanding and dedication and loyalty, then things would be fine and nothing bad would ever happen.

They convince you that this is the one ultimate truth and you almost can't escape it because their entire logic is warped around what YOU did to cause this, to cause them to snap and hurt you. They create this fictional world where potentially no abuse would happen if only you acted differently, almost as if it was under your control, whether they abuse you or not.

You can get lost in that world where your actions all have unpredictable, horrible and painful consequences, you can try to change your behaviour in a million ways to try and get different results, you can run yourself ragged trying to please the abuser to make them less hostile, and they still abuse you, and you still feel like nothing will ever be good enough, like you are not good enough.

And that's because their logic makes no sense. A person who loves you wouldn't do this to you. They wouldn't hurt you for anything. They wouldn't want you to suffer. They wouldn't consider themselves an authority over whether you've deserved pain or not, you would never deserve pain in their eyes.

A person who loves you and cares about you does not want you to run yourself ragged trying to please them. They don't want to train you into obedience, they don't find your worth equal to how much you're useful to them, they don't see you as a toy to manipulate into as much work as possible. The person who would do this to you hates you so intensely and so cruelly, you're not even real to them. They don't even see you as a person. And you know it, because after this type of treatment, you don't see yourself as a person either, you only see something to be used as a resource and discard at will, this is not who you are!

Compassion, humanizing, comfort, warmth, concern, care about your emotions, care about your experience of life, care for your well being, your happiness, your confidence, your quality of life, your dreams and goals, your happiness, your desires, freedom, passion, excitement, enjoyment, love can't exist without all that. That's what makes you feel like a person, that's what love is. Not being trained and dehumanized. Not being judged and punished because your best is not enough for someone. Not being blamed and scrutinized when you're in pain. That's the deepest hatred a person can hold for you, that's desire to torture you.

It doesn't matter if you're not good enough for this person because you were never meant to be a resource or a property. You were never meant to be used. You are good enough to laugh with, to spend time with, to adore, to comfort and to play with, to hold memories with someone, to be seen and heard and appreciated, to be held special in someone's heart. That's what you're meant for and this person is failing you. You don't have to be anything for them. They don't deserve to have anyone to use.

[agentrouka-blog]

how do you reconcile "targaryens are evil and abusive for practicing incest" with shipping a brother and sister lol

Because that sentence is an incomplete strawman, I don't have to reconcile it with anything.

The Targaryens are abusive for forcing incest, to the point where it has become a normalized part of their (single-family) culture. Its practice and the preference that they develop for it is tied to their sense of inherent superiority over others.

The line must be kept pure, Viserys had told her a thousand times; theirs was the kingsblood, the golden blood of old Valyria, the blood of the dragon. Dragons did not mate with the beasts of the field, and Targaryens did not mingle their blood with that of lesser men. (AGOT, Daenerys I)

Their incest heap is not accidental or freely chosen. It's either abjectly forced or culturally ingrained from birth, and it is part of a supremacist worldview born in a slaving culture that violently subjugated vast parts of Essos and drew untold numbers into slavery. Beasts of the field, as they were. The Targaryens are a continuation of that line, and it's why after 300 years they were as isolated from Westeros as when they invaded.

It's remotely comparable to Jaime and Cersei who were also raised to view Lannisters as inherently better than others, like little wannabe Targaryens, which likely played into how the relationship between them developed. And yet the truly problematic thing is how they act to enable their relationship (murder, causing political instability and war) and how they treat each other (codependent, violent).

It is not remotely comparable to Jon and Sansa, who are not shipped for being an incest couple (by most, anyway) but for being a pseudo-incest couple that will struggle with this fact until they are miraculously rewarded with a surprise twist where they become a culturallly acceptable degree of related - capable of openly marrying.