#how do i be normal

[inkskinned]

you wanted to be a good friend, because you loved your friends, but the truth was that everyone else somehow had a pamphlet on being normal that you never received. most of the time you learn by trial-and-error. you are terrified of the next big mistake you make, because it seems like the rules are completely arbitrary.

you've learned to keep the prickly parts of your personality in a stormcloud under your bed - as if they're a second version of you; one that will make your friends hate you. it feels feral, burning, ugly.

instead, you have assembled habits based on the statistical likelihood of pleasing others. you're a good listener, which is to say - if you do speak up, you might end up saying the wrong thing and scaring off someone, but people tend to like someone-who-listens. or you've got no true desires or goals, because people like it when you're passive, mutable. you're "not easy to fluster" which is to say - your emotions are fundamentally uninteresting to others around you; so you've learned to control them to a degree that you can no longer really feel them happening.

you have long suspected something is wrong with you, but most of the time, googling doesn't help. you are so-used to helping-yourself, alone and with no handbook. the reek of your real self feels more like a horrible joke - you wake up, and, despite all your preparations, suddenly the whole house is full of smoke. the real you is someone waiting to ruin your other-life, the one where you're normal and happy. the real-self is unpredictable, angry.

your real self snarls when people infantilize the whole situation. because if you were really suffering, everyone seems to think you'd be completely unable to cope. but you already learned the rules, so you do know how to cope, and you have fucking been coping. it's not black-and-white. it's not that you are healed during the other times - it's just that you're able to fucking try. and honestly, whenever you show symptoms, it's a really fucking bad sign.

because the symptoms you have are ugly and unmanageable for others. your symptoms aren't waifish white girl things. they're annoying and complicated. they will be the subject of so many pretentious instagram reels. if they cared about you, they'd just show up on time. you care, a lot, so deeply it burns you. you like to picture a world where the comments read if they loved you, they'd never need glasses to see. but since that's a rule you've seen repeated - "one must never be late or you are a bad friend" - you constantly worry about being late and leave agonizingly early. there are no words for how you feel when you're still late; no matter how hard you were trying.

so you have to make up for it. you have to make up for that little horrible real you that you keep locked in a cabinet. you are bad at answering emails so every project you make has to be perfect. you are weird and sensitive so you have to learn to be funny and interesting. you are an inconvenience to others, so you become as smooth as possible, buffing out all the rough parts.

all this. all this. so people can pass their hands over you and just tell you just the once -how good you are. you're a good friend. you're loveable.

[themidnightwitch44]

Yes yes, everyone talks about the set design for the Falsettos revival, and I love it, and I’ll talk about the cube at a later point probably, but I’ve been trying to wrap my hand around the COSTUME DESIGN

Specifically the COLORS

And I think I’ve got a PIECE of it

It’s something I noticed during “This had better come to a stop”

Specifically around the line “He wasn’t very smart but he was rich, Marvin, which Marvin would you prefer I lust for”

Whizzer is in predominantly blue, and Trina in warm and yellow tones. Marvin is in green. Marvin is LITERALLY a combination of Whizzer’s and Trina’s color palettes, as he’s trying to figure out how to juggle both parts of his life

[pretend-of-beginning]

SO THEYRE JUST GONNA DO THAT. AND THEN. JUST CARRY ON. JUST ROLL ON BY.

[tortelloniboi]

how am i supposed to continue on with my daily life after listening to dndads season two episode 23

[dollsome-does-tumblr]

responding to comments on my two most recent fics before the finale drops because the idea of answering them afterwards is just too emotionally taxing to me ........... really feeling emo as heck ............... 🥲

[chapinii]

I have a job now i can't wait to make vague tumblr posts about it 🥰

[craycraybluejay]

Literally so bad at being Normal in a social situation it makes me want to kms.

Like my friend just went "you know you really should try to understand others better" and gave me this look

And it just

Sucked the life out of me

You know?

I was having fun. I thought he was having fun. I thought WE were having fun. And then just. I failed. Again. And I don't even have a clue what unspoken rule I've broken, or even how many for that matter. I don't fucking know what's wrong with me. What made me think I could let my guard down? Put down my mask? What a fucking joke. I'll fucking glue it on my face. I'm tired of trying to connect with people as myself. It's never gonna happen. Better to put up a facade and get some profit from the relationship than to let things get ugly and real. That's what this was SUPPOSED TO BE. But somehow I fell into it more intensely than wanted. I was just doing it out of politeness, out of kindness. I didn't really want to go anywhere. I didn't want to do anything. I knew things would go wrong. But I was INVITED. It would be RUDE to refuse. And yet I ended up RUDE anyway. Because I can't be NORMAL for a single 24 hours. I have to be. But I'm not. I'm incapable of it.

I wish I could just

Grab him and shake him and tell him, "don't you know I wish I could be JUST LIKE YOU? That I could be NORMAL? Have a LOVING FAMILY and a NORMAL BRAIN and a REGULAR SOCIAL LIFE and regular abilities and incapabilities? Don't you know???? Does it look like I fucking ENJOY this??? Like somehow I meant whatever thing I did or failed to do that offended or hurt you????? You had to deal with me for twenty four hours. I have to deal with me EVERY 24 FUCKING HOURS. You think it's fun? Huh? You think I don't hate that I can't just be polite and have normal interests and be likeable? You think I don't hate the way that the moment I make the mistake of actually LIKING someone I fucking ruin it by being real? By letting down my guard? You think I don't FUCKING DESPISE it? I know. I shouldn't like you. I shouldn't care. I need to be normal." Normal normal normal. Don't get excited, Anouther, don't get sad, don't feel pain, don't get tired. Normal normal normal normal normal. Don't speak of your ailments. Don't ask for help. Just shut up and take what you get and be fucking GRATEFUL for it. Normal normal normal normal normal. Just shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up why do you always have to talk things need to be quiet just let the other people choose appease them just be normal make sure they're happy reap the rewards just don't get excited stay on task stay focused on the goal stop getting FUCKING SENTIMENTAL. Over n over n over. Be normal.

[futureless]

i haven’t felt a single emotion in months. i mean absolutely NOTHING. not grief, not guilt, not shame, no sadness, no happiness, i even fucked my best friends boyfriend and destroyed our relationship to feel SOMETHING, ANYTHING, but still felt nothing. i honestly thought i was dead & everything that’s been happening hasn’t been real.

until i met brandon. we’ve been together every day for about 2 weeks now. long story short… i feel something. i feel too much. i am pushing him away because it is overwhelming. i am panicking, doing way too much. creating chaos. i don’t know how to manage or stabilize my emotions anymore. i don’t even know what i’m feeling or how to even process it.

my most recent ex-boyfriend.. fiancé… was shot and passed away on may 2nd, 2022. just a few weeks ago. i never felt anything or processed it. i feel EVERYTHING right now. i feel grief heavily, anger, sadness, euphoria, mania, depression, love, shame, guilt, it’s all too much. i can’t take it, i am losing my mind

i have made him upset today. i think i will lose him too. i wonder if my emotions will shut back off or if i will lay in my bed and finally die this time. why do i do this? how do i live like this?

i push everyone away, but all i really want is to be loved. nobody understands. he thinks i’m insane.

… am i insane?

[room4creation]

I wish I could do high school and college again but like being normal

[qiinamii]

we'll do fine.

[zytes]

this manatee looks like it’s in a skyrim loading screen

[vulturedimension]

we are discussing our childhood passions on the dash tonight

[flurmitcraff]

Mumbo, desperate to feel normal for once, releases dirt on his fellow hermits and asks the community to rank their weirdness.

[inkskinned]

the thing is that they're so fascinated by sex, they love sex, they can't imagine a world without sex - they need sex to sell things, they need sex to be part of their personality, they need sex to prove their power - but they hate sex. they are disgusted by it.

sex is the only thing that holds their attention, and it is also the thing that can never be discussed directly.

you can't tell a child the normal names for parts of their body, that's sexual in nature, because the body isn't a body, it's a vessel of sex. it doesn't matter that it's been proven in studies (over and over) that kids need to know the names of their genitals; that they internalize sexual shame at a very young age and know it's 'dirty' to have a body; that it overwhelmingly protects children for them to have the correct words to communicate with. what matters is that they're sexual organs. what matters is that it freaks them out to think about kids having body parts - which only exist in the context of sex.

it's gross to talk about a period or how to check for cancer in a testicle or breast. that is nasty, illicit. there will be no pain meds for harsh medical procedures, just because they feature a cervix.

but they will put out an ad of you scantily-clad. you will sell their cars for them, because you have abs, a body. you will drip sex. you will ooze it, like a goo. like you were put on this planet to secrete wealth into their open palms.

they will hit you with that same palm. it will be disgusting that you like leather or leashes, but they will put their movie characters in leather and latex. it will be wrong of you to want sexual freedom, but they will mark their success in the number of people they bed.

they will crow that it's inappropriate for children so there will be no lessons on how to properly apply a condom, even to teens. it's teaching them the wrong things. no lessons on the diversity of sexual organ growth, none on how to obtain consent properly, none on how to recognize when you feel unsafe in your body. if you are a teenager, you have probably already been sexualized at some point in your life. you will have seen someone also-your-age who is splashed across a tv screen or a magazine or married to someone three times your age. you will watch people pull their hair into pigtails so they look like you. so that they can be sexy because of youth. one of the most common pornography searches involves newly-18 young women. girls. the words "barely legal," a hiss of glass sand over your skin.

barely legal. there are bills in place that will not allow people to feel safe in their own bodies. there are people working so hard to punish any person for having sex in a way that isn't god-fearing and submissive. heteronormative. the sex has to be at their feet, on your knees, your eyes wet. when was the first time you saw another person crying in pornography and thought - okay but for real. she looks super unhappy. later, when you are unhappy, you will close your eyes and ignore the feeling and act the role you have been taught to keep playing. they will punish the sex workers, remove the places they can practice their trade safely. they will then make casual jokes about how they sexually harass their nanny.

and they love sex but they hate that you're having sex. you need to have their ornamental, perfunctory, dispassionate sex. so you can't kiss your girlfriend in the bible belt because it is gross to have sex with someone of the same gender. so you can't get your tubes tied in new england because you might change your mind. so you can't admit you were sexually assaulted because real men don't get hurt, you should be grateful. you cannot handle your own body, you cannot handle the risks involved, let other people decide that for you. you aren't ready yet.

but they need you to have sex because you need to have kids. at 15, you are old enough to parent. you are not old enough to hear the word fuck too many times on television.

they are horrified by sex and they never stop talking about it, thinking about it, making everything unnecessarily preverted. the saying - a thief thinks everyone steals. they stand up at their podiums and they look out at the crowd and they sign a bill into place that makes sexwork even more unsafe and they stand up and smile and sign a bill that makes gender-affirming care illegal and they get up and they shrug their shoulders and write don't say gay and they get up, and they make the world about sex, but this horrible, plastic vision of it that they have. this wretched, emotionless thing that holds so much weight it's staggering. they put their whole spine behind it and they push and they say it's normal!

this horrible world they live in. disgusted and also obsessed.

[punkitt-is-here]

you gotta believe her

[mike-wachowski]

reblog and tag ur answer so I can see please :)