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#interpersonal relationships
hauntedselves · 2 days
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something i realised lately is that, during disagreements, i struggle a lot with figuring out if I'm being unreasonable or if the other person is. which is very autistic of me lol. it's easy to say that they're wrong, I'm right, but i never can tell if that's actually true.
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dead-core · 3 months
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i know people love me but i am a black hole and it's just not enough. hope this helps!
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hussyknee · 1 year
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DARVO: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.
An abuser denies the abuse ever took place, attacks the person that was abused (often the victim) for attempting to hold the abuser accountable for their actions, and claims that they are actually the victim in the situation, thus reversing what may be a reality of victim and offender. It often involves not just "playing the victim" but also victim blaming.
TL;Dr: Stop pathologizing neurodivergent people and individualizing abuse, and start treating abusers and bullies as a social failing that are products of privilege.
Unless you want to insist that every bitchass who's ever plagued marginalized people has NPD.
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zoestorm · 4 months
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I am once again tapping the sign
This time around, the sign reads as follows:
"No" is a complete sentence; it does not require any further information. If you say no to someone, and they refuse to accept it until you elaborate on why you are telling them no, they are in the wrong: you set a boundary, and they are violating it.
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femmefatalevibe · 8 months
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Femme Fatale Guide: Types of Relationships To Help You Thrive In Life
Table of Contents:
Healthy Relationship With Yourself
Peer-To-Peer Relationship
Mentorship Relationship
Goal-Oriented/Accountability-Focused Relationship
Emotionally-Intimate Relationship
Physical/Sexually-Intimate Relationship
Acquaintance Relationships
Second-Degree Relationships
Types of Relationships:
Healthy Relationship With Yourself: Internalize and act with the knowledge that you're worthy of love, care, and nourishment, and have unconditional permission to work towards your goals & dream life. Eat healthfully, drink plenty of water, remain well-rested, move your body daily, maintain proper hygiene/a clean home, invest in your appearance to feel your best, live as a life-long learner, establish healthy habits/routines, get your finances in order, establish and maintain boundaries, make positive self-talk a priority.
Peer-To-Peer Relationship: Aka friendships, which are intended to offer mutual support and joy in life. These friendships thrive on having similar values and interests, which makes these individuals your greatest cheerleaders, advice givers/receivers, and partners in crime to have fun or offer platonic love/emotional support during traditional or difficult seasons in your life. Peer-to-peer relationships should add mutual excitement, encouragement, and emotional nourishment, and provide a soundboard for confidential information exchange, ears to listen without unnecessary or superficial judgment, and solicited advice from someone who has your best interest in mind.
Mentorship Relationship: This could be a boss, teacher, professor, aunt, uncle, or another trusted adult(s) who can guide you based on their more extensive life experience/wisdom. You can have one or several mentors at any life stage and for different purposes. These people should be trustworthy (keep your information confidential unless you state otherwise) and express their advice through the lens of your best interest rather than their own personal desires or biases (at least those left unchecked). Ensure you feel safe around these people, and their presence in your life is a mutually-nourishing relationship that allows you to grow personally, professionally, and relationally.
Goal-Oriented/Accountability-Focused Relationship: A coach, mentorship, or friendship based on the achievement of a particular goal or practice. This type of relationship can manifest as an accountability partner or support group. A therapist can also fulfill this role in your life (but like, a coach, this relationship is a one-way street to offer you emotional support/tools & resources). Some reasons for an accountability-oriented relationship include helping you achieve a certain health/fitness goal, establish better routines, advance in your career, let go of unhealthy habits, patterns, or addictions, better manage your finances, or help you get your other relationships (family, partner, friends, self-talk, boss, co-workers, etc.) in order.
Emotionally-Intimate Relationship: Someone with whom you feel an unwavering emotional closeness and connection. This person can be a partner you're involved with sexually/physically intimate with or not. Asexuality exists, of course. And emotional intimacy can definitely exist in close platonic relationships (like your best friendships) without any romantic or sexual feelings. These relationships are important because they allow you to let your emotional walls down and be your vulnerable, authentic self.
Physical/Sexually-Intimate Relationship: This relationship could be with a romantic partner, FWB, with multiple partners, purely with yourself, or somewhere in between. If you have sexual needs, it's important to find pleasurable ways to satisfy these desires in a way that makes you feel most fulfilled and respected. Let go of any shame you experience when exploring this side of yourself. Experiment and learn what you like/dislike/fantasize about. Use this information to elevate your practice and communication with any partner(s) for a heightened, more enjoyable, and potentially closer emotionally-bonding experience.
Hobby/Interest-Centric Relationship: These relationships can extend from co-workers to your friends in a certain class/the one friend you go on weekly walks with, follow a particular TV show with, exchange beauty tips with, "going out" friends, etc. While these connections aren't vulnerable to the degree of a close friendship/relationship, it is important to have some relationships that are purely based on fun, light-hearted conversations, and mutual hobbies/interests/lifestyles. Having someone to share these mutual experiences with helps you feel more connected to your environment/communities, not feel isolated/lonely when your friends, family, or intimate partner has different hobbies, career aspirations, or daily routines/lifestyle compared to you, and provides a mutual soundboard on issues, insights, and exciting moments in this particular area of your life.
Acquaintance Relationships: Everyone needs those friends, co-workers, or classmates they can just chat with when at a party, a group meeting, dinner, a special occasion, to grab a quick lunch or coffee, etc. These people are fun to be around and allow you to indulge in light, easy conversations to offer temporary social support/fulfillment. These relationships also expand your network for professional opportunities, making new friends, finding dates/a potential partner, interest groups/new hobbies, referral services/classes/spaces, and other contacts that can enrich your life.
Second-Degree Relationships: These are friend-of-a-friend type connections who can be/become your future business partners, romantic/sexual partners, co-workers, investors, hairdressers, realtors, stylists, finance managers, etc. Be ready to reciprocate these offers and be this person in others' lives, too. As your network gets broader and more dynamic, better chances and potential there is to connect with the right people to help you achieve your goals, desires, and overall life satisfaction. Success and efficiency rarely – if ever – exist in isolation.
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aestheteinreverie · 2 years
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the “did you have lunch? it’s alright, just have dinner a little early!” kind of friendships. the “are you in the mental space to listen right now” kind of friendships. the “i’ll just send a voice note for later” kind of friendships. friendships where you respect each other’s emotional boundaries. friendships where you remind them to have lunch but make sure you are not burdening them with it. friendships where you communicate. friendships where you are on your own individual journeys but are navigating life together. friendships which help you grow. healthy friendships. i think we have talked much about the pain of losing a friend. let’s also talk about the joy of having one.
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ashersskye · 25 days
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You deserve healthy communication. You deserve safe communication. You deserve direct communication. You deserve to feel safe expressing yourself. You deserve to feel safe expressing your concerns and asking questions. You deserve to have friends, family, and chosen family that listens and honors you, your voice, and your choices in life. You deserve to be considered, respected, and included, even when you're not in the room. You deserve to feel emotionally supported by the ones you love.
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whatbigotspost · 8 months
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On being real mean and then less mean
Long post incoming........I've been chipping away at writing this for like a month now and (unlike my usual self) I've stalled out a few times unsure of what all I want to say. But I think I've got it squared up the way I would like to. Unfortunately, I need a long context laying preamble. Sorry this will feel like an online recipe experience 😅
As the 5 of you who usually read my blocks of text will know well, I grew up in a very toxic, abusive, high-control environment. If you wanted to intentionally produce kids who would have anxiety, shame, self-loathing, aggression, be overly-competitive, angry, and equipped with little-to-no social skills, you should be parented like I was. In my nuclear family, we couldn't have had worse life lessons or role modeling when it comes to building healthy relationships, strong friendships, and harmonious existence with others. Violence was often normalized. Manipulation was encouraged. Specific conditions and rules were put on receiving love and/or affection. We weren't seen as independent humans who had their own lives and thoughts and ambitions--we were seen as extensions of my father, brought into the world to be his unquestioning cheerleaders and adoring team, to do our best to become his clones, to live out his unrealized dreams, and to combat his grievances w/ the world.
In short, it sucked.
Above all, I was taught in a very deep and real way to hate myself, not that this was explicitly acknowledged mind you, but it was the implication of everything. This self loathing was an extension of my father's own insecurities and full inability to grow the fuck up and build a life for himself that was emotionally mature, resilience, and self-caring. This mentality, if truly internalized, creates ugliness from the inside that radiates outward. I can see that so clearly now, but back then, I didn't understand it at all.
I was implicitly taught a thought process like, "the best way to 'own' someone is to shit talk them into crying" or "you can make yourself look stronger and distract from your own shortcomings by staying 1 step ahead of everyone through making THEM feel like shit about their shortcomings."
But you weren't just mean to someone to stay ahead of them, you were also mean as a way to ingratiate others to you. "Telling it like it is" even if what you said was unnecessarily cruel, was a virtue. Like, "what? I'm just saying what we're all thinking!" kind of stuff. I was taught that "teasing" is a way you show someone you love them, where "teasing" means saying all kinds of awful things that are quite hurtful. I was taught that being funny was one of the most important qualities and it didn't matter if those laughs came at the expense of others' feelings and if, over time, your comments began to destroy those around you.
It's "just teasing." It's "just joking." It was a lot of "oh come, on grow a thicker skin" over "maybe saying cruel shit for fun is bad?" It was "God, I can dish it and I can take it, why can't you?" over "maybe I want friends who support one another instead of digging at our insecurities."
Some recent nostalgia I've been wallowing in this summer reminded me of my grossest self who lived by these rules.
Those worst moments, where I was a bully and an asshole, all occurred for me at school, when I was probably around 11/12 and older. School was a very interesting place for me. When I try to paint an efficient picture of what my childhood home was like for others, I often say, my family existed in a weird liminal someplace between mainstream, mid western white suburban society and a survivalist/separatist/cult/fringe culture (like Tara Westover describes in Educated or as seen in Captain Fantastic if you're familiar w/ either of those.) We were a cult of 4 and there were many things We Did Not Do, all my dad's rules. (My grandparent's house was a safe harbor unlike my home, but that's a tangent for another time.) That said, accessing education was something my father DID trust the local government to do (as long as he could emphasize over and over how we can't trust everything they say, we could trust their lessons of math, music, English, etc.) He strategically chose a place to live where I could get the best "free" education possible in Central Indiana. My social life existed fully in a traditional school setting, where it took me all of 2 seconds to clock that other kids' lives weren't like mine, and that was compelling to me. I became a lifelong student of interpersonal relationship dynamics far before I realized I had become a lifelong student of relationships. I remember when I was in elementary school journaling about and thinking about and talking about all the friend groups and dynamics, etc. Writing stories about friend groups. Creating Barbie universes and dramas with 2 neighborhood friends. Trying to spend more and more time w/ peers instead of family.
Beyond that, I loved school because I would receive praise and love at home for A's and praise and love from my teachers for being "so good" (aka offering 100% deference to adult authority as I been told to do, even if I could question them inside.) This all means when I was very young, I did SO WELL at figuring out school...how to make friends...how to get an A+...how to get teachers to love me...how to be The Good Kid...how to reduce my value to my grades and what I produced, which is a mentality I've still only begun to unweave from within me, some 30 years later.
Anyway, point is, despite the hand I was dealt, I somehow never had trouble making friends and with a lot of my closest friends, I wasn't all that mean to in the way I describe above, at least initially. But when I did apply that behavior, god damn was it ugly. I get that now, but back then, I felt cool as fuck.
The more it (temporarily worked for me) the more I used meanness. By the time I was like 17, I literally was known as mean and wore it as a badge of honor. Lacking emotional intelligence and an overtly loving home environment, I thought it was normal? cool? idk...to "not be able to handle mushy emotional stuff." I would (LITERALLY) run if friends were telling me they loved me. It became more and more common for me to apply, "witty mean girl" quips to even my closest friends. Stuff was said about me like, "oh, if she makes fun of you, it means she really loves you." I was always saying shit to gain laughs from others that really hurt some people and I would act like that was a THEM thing like "god, they're so sensitive, poor widdle baby."
NOT GOOD. Nothing to be proud of. Signs of someone who deep down hates themselves and hopes you don't notice because of a big, bad exterior. In this era, I was someone who attracted and accepted other toxic people and was abusive toward and accepted abuse from friends who had these same issues. How I met and fell in love w/ my partner who is not at all like this during that period of time back when sometimes confounds me. His boundaries and feelings are why I started really looking inward. His patience and willingness to understand what was going on for me was immense (as I was similarly patient for things related to his baggage.) FOR YEARS we had a dynamic where I'd "make fun of" "tease" "just joke" about him too harshly in front of others and he would ask me over and over to stop. I'd get better for a while, then I'd backslide and make him feel like shit in a group setting again--but hey! everyone laughed at my ~*~*just oh so hilarious comment*~*~ and so that makes it fine right?? Obviously, not, and the older I got the more I started to FINALLY see "mean" as mean and not "telling it like it is" or being a core part of my humor.
How I REALLY know that this toxic coping mechanism I used to my benefit was a thinly veiled defense mechanism style behavior to cloud my deep deep deep self loathing is because when I'd be talking w/ my partner about his very reasonable and normal request that I not say unnecessarily cruel things about him for fun in front of others, I would be afraid of things like, "But that's part of who I am? It's my humor."
I really thought so lowly of myself that I believed that if I wasn't witty-mean, people wouldn't love me. That I wouldn't still be funny. That I wouldn't be ME unless I was being MEAN. It was so backwards and upside down because my meanness did make me harder to be around, and people were right there loving me anyway, not because of it, but despite it.
It's so sad to realize this! Looking back and describing this girl now feels in both parts foreign to me and also like looking in a mirror. I've been in 20 years of some form or another of "recovery" from this kind of childhood now, and I'm about 15 years into true healing and re-parenting myself. Almost 14 years ago, I made the biggest shift toward killing this old mentality...I moved away from my home town and the people I spent my days around to that point. I had an opportunity for a hard reset in my social life and behaviors, leaving behind old reputations that didn't serve me. And I’m still me. I’m spicy and I’m real and I’m blunt and I’m funny but I’m not cruel or mean anymore. The old me sometimes still rears her ugly head, especially when I'm tired, stress, or dysregulated. But it's less "how I am" now than ever in my life.
As I've been thinking about this whole topic for quite a few weeks now, and I tried to articulate what I did that really changed me and allowed me to shed that mean girl shell of armor I was wearing that I had so thoroughly needed to outgrow. If these things resonate with you, I do have some pieces of advice.
Speak from your personal values 100% of the time. That means defining your personal values first, not just accepting what you think is valuable you've been told by others. Once I grew the maturity to understand I needed my own life values, it was very simple to grasp that I was not in line with them. My top 5 personal life values are: love, equity, humor, loyalty, and open communication. Mean jokes don't check many of those boxes.
Become your own best friend first. My behaviors were driven by self-hatred I did not choose. When I choose how I want to feel about myself, I choose self-compassion, and I actively cultivate this mentality and practice all. the. time so that I don't backslide.
Stop "telling it like it is." This is not helpful. No one needs something obvious and cruel pointed out. This is basic "THINK" acronym stuff. It's a classic because it works. Is what you're about to say.... "true, helpful, inspiring, necessary, kind." Telling it like it is is only TRUE, it's rarely -HINK.
Never "just joke" about something someone could possibly be vulnerable about. If someone has a physical wound, you don't jab your finger into it for fun. When someone has an emotional tenderness, you similarly don't jab a mean comment into it. When in doubt, just don't joke about it.
Have actual hard conversations and "call outs" in the right times/spaces. Sometimes behavior that one friend may call "mean" is actually a very necessary hard conversation to the other person. So it's helpful to just remember that those kind of real-deal communications are rarely done effectively or productively with an audience or by using humor. Real shit deserves a real shit tone.
Push yourself to say the nicest stuff and just be fucking sincere and genuine. Tell your friends you love them. Tell your friends when you are obsessed with what they are achieving/doing/saying. Tell your friends WHAT you love about them. Make an effort for your most important relationships to have far, far more "positive bids" than negative.
Use "teasing" or "self deprecating" humor selectively and strategically. Sometimes, my partner and I DO tease each other by having open communication and actually knowing one another's boundaries, I now understand what's fine and what's not. So I can proceed w/o hurting him. But I don't know most people to that level, so I'm not going to try to tease someone else in front of others w/o that knowledge anymore. Self deprecating humor has also been a go-to for me in the past and one of the people I could be meanest to was myself. I realized I should use it sparingly with people who I don't know well, too, because I don't necessarily need to give them a cheat sheet to what my baggage is. And lastly, in general, I think that we should ALL be very very careful to spare strangers our sarcasm, deadpan comments, or whatever. Many folks are neurodiverse or otherwise don't get your sarcasm and your implications can be lost in translation. You never know what topics, with strangers, might be a hornet's nest you stumble into.
PFEW! Ok, I think that's plenty for now! If you've got similar tips or thoughts, LMK! Of course, I still fuck up my practice of not being mean all the time, but the best thing about having done this work and shared it with those around me is that my friends are much more like to say something like, "OW! Was that your dad talking for a sec?" and help me than to just go on assuming I'm an asshole. 😆
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Saying the quiet part out loud, the reason a lot of women do not see certain behaviours as red flags in platonic and romantic relationships is because they themselves engage in that same behaviour.
For example, a woman who calls other women bitches is not going to think calling a woman a bitch is a red flag. Same thing with gossiping, watching porn and deplorable behaviours.
It is very rare for women to excuse bad behaviours that they themselves do not engage in. While I don't believe "you attract who you are", it is true that most times,you keep who you are.
While it is true that people do not have to be perfect to be deserving of love, it is absurd to me that people don't understand that one has to be a good and ethical person themselves to be in relationships with good and ethical people.
You actually have to put in effort to be loved. The idea propagated by western media that people should be loved just because is not based in reality. People have standards and if you don't meet their standards, they are not going to keep you in their lives.
This isn't a call for pretense and hypocrisy, this is a call for people to genuinely change.
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this-is-war-peacock · 5 months
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I just had a friendship breakup and there’s some stuff with that that lines up with a particular sub-population of the internet that I think some of y’all really need to hear. Basically, it doesn’t matter if you’re neurodivergent or mentally ill or whatever, you cannot just deny reality, make shit up, and insist that your fantasies are real. For example, if you do something shitty to someone, you cannot just decide that them being mad at you is not a natural consequence of your actions and that they aren’t allowed to be upset because it makes you uncomfortable.
I bring this up on here because it’s super common for people with mental health struggles to go through a phase where they feel like everyone else should just cater to them while they do literally nothing to treat their issues. I know it comes from recognizing the unfairness of how everyone else can just do whatever while you have to dedicate years of your life to changing yourself but that change is necessary and you’ll get over it. This is for the traumatized girlies who try and insist that literally any and all expressions of anger are abuse and anything else like that because anger makes them uncomfortable so they make it everyone else’s problem. Touch grass and get a therapist, you’re not valid and you aren’t going to be able to form and maintain relationships as long as you have that level of entitlement and detachment from reality.
Also, I get that a lot of you didn’t get the special extra education that those of us who grew up autistic did, where you’re manually taught social pragmatics and emotions and shit, but I’ve also got another something special that y’all missed. If you did a shitty thing to someone you have a relationship with, it is neither normal nor valid for your very first response to them expressing their anger to be playing the victim and saying they can’t be mad at you. Same also goes for if your very first response to them is to nitpick the wording of what they just said before you say literally anything else. If you’re the asshole in the situation and now you need to make amends and shit, do the apology stuff first and then bring up any issues like that after.
Oh and last thing - I know it’s been said before but if anyone claims or acts like they’re always the victim, no the fuck they aren’t. If someone has a pattern of not having relationships with people last and then claiming every single time that they did nothing wrong and it was all the other person, they are lying. Also, don’t be that person either.
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actuallyadhd · 1 month
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Hyperfixation ended
My boyfriend has ADHD. He’s acknowledged that in the beginning he was hyper fixated on me and now that feeling has gone he’s confused and thinks we should break up He says he has love for me and is so sad that it didn’t work but ultimately that feeling of being in love isn’t there Now he’s saying he’s confused and that his ADHD is to blame Is jumping ship the wrong thing to do
Sent February 5, 2024
Ouch. I’m so sorry this is happening.
You can’t force him to stay. If he for sure wants to break up, then that’s what’s happening. I would say that it is probably partly due to his ADHD, but I suspect that it’s mainly due to his definition of “being in love”.
There is a conversation to be had, about what exactly “love” is and whether “that feeling of being in love” is actually necessary in order to have a good romantic partnership.
Before I get started, I will note that this isn’t specific to ADHD. Lots of people who don’t have ADHD seem to think that if you don’t have certain feelings all the time, then you’re not really “in love” and you should definitely break up. If you want to see what I think about this whole thing, keep reading. Otherwise, no worries.
-J
Movies and media in general romanticize the process of meeting, falling in love, and getting together romantically. We don’t always see the couple years later, and a lot of the time if we do, the relationship is on the rocks and that’s the point of the story. Think about media that you really like that has actually healthy long-term romantic relationships. How much is there?
Even in children’s and YA stories that include parents who have been married for a long time, the relationships are often strained. And I know that it’s pretty realistic for young readers to have divorced parents, or parents who are only together “for the children”, but I also think it’s important to show examples of healthy relationships so that people whose parents don’t have a great track record still have somewhere to go to see how to handle disagreements and the like in a healthy fashion.
Like, sure, you get drama if the romantic relationship is on the verge of breaking up, but you can have other drama instead and have part of the story be how these people, who chose to be together, are facing adversity together. 
In real life, things might start out with butterflies and nerves and giddy elation and yes, hyperfixation. But over time, those things are probably going to wane somewhat. That doesn’t mean the love is disappearing, it means the relationship is growing and changing, assuming you are getting to know each other better.
I know that everyone defines love a little differently. My base definition is that I want the best for those I love, and I try to show that in the way I relate to them. But I also love different people in different ways. My love for my parents is different from my love for my brothers is different from my love for my husband is different from my love for my friends is different from my love for my child is different from my love for my pets. (English is ridiculous this way. Why do we have just one word for all of these different things?!?) 
I’ve been married for nearly 14 years, and we were together for two and a half before we got married. A lot of things between us are just comfortable at this point, partly because we know each other so well.
Love isn’t just something that happens, it’s something you choose. It’s what you’re choosing when you decide to stay during hard times. (Not abuse. Being abused isn’t “hard times” it’s being abused. That is not love.)
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You should want a partner that is going to challenge you to be a better person.
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akindplace · 2 years
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We all know hurt people hurt other people. But your trauma, your anxiety, your fear, your mental illness does not give you a pass on being hateful towards other people, especially when they have clearly communicated boundaries and stated how you are making them feel. What happened to you was unfair, but it won't heal unless you face it directly and learn to let go of all this rage, instead of lashing out on the wrong people. You don't get to abuse others because you were abused, you don't have the right to infringe on their boundaries, you don't have the right to be so hateful towards someone who never hurt you, even though you are struggling yourself. Everyone is struggling, and everyone has their own limitations.
Your feelings are valid, your desires, your rage, but they are not facts, and they don't give you control over other people and excuses when you become toxic to others. Don't infantilize your own behavior as that of someone who cannot stop themselves to excuse the same behavior your abuser had towards you when boundaries were communicated, which you understood and infringed them anyway, lashed out anyway, and ended up repeating the cycle of abuse over and over.
Your rage over what happened to you is valid, but traumatizing other people because you are hurting yourself is just repeating the cycle. Sometimes, we are the ones in the wrong, and we need to take accountability on the fact that we can be toxic so we can face our own hurt, our own relationship problems, and start healing from all this pain instead of directing them to other people who had nothing to do with it in the first place.
Boundaries are boundaries, and you if you are aware of that and they were communicated directly to you, don't get the right to infringe upon them, to restrict someone's freedom, to restrict someone's agency over their body because you don't agree that they should have the choice, or because you feel like you lack control, or feel like your own needs are more important than of others because you are suffering. Everyone is suffering too, you are just acting with disregard towards them. Even when you are suffering, you don't get to infringe on someone's autonomy when they have clearly communicated over and over and you have understood it but did it regardless. It's disruptive to your personal relationships, and you don't get to pick and choose which boundaries you are going to respect, you don't get to be rude, to lash out or to abuse anyone else because you were abused yourself, or because you are struggling too.
You can't deny other people any respect just because you were denied of it by someone else, years ago. Your responsibility now to face this trauma, this illness, this fear, instead of lashing out at other people who have nothing to do with the your own hurt. No matter how hard it seems to you now, you can recover from all these intense feelings, but don't use them as an excuse for toxic behavior instead of taking responsibility for what you do. You don't get to infringe upon others' rights no matter how you feel, you don't get to hurt them because you are hurt yourself, you don't get to use it as an excuse instead of acknowledging that you might be prone to repeating the cycle of abuse (which is something very common in the first place).
Your hurt, your illness, your trauma, it doesn't put you above anyone else to the point you can completely disregard their autonomy and agency when you already clearly know they don't want you to keep disrespecting them because they have communicated it repeatedly. You are choosing to disrupt your relationships as long as you don't take accountability and deal with your own issues for what they are, instead of lashing them out in other people in hopes they will just deal with it.
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Having experienced each of these to the point of not being able to recognize them in adulthood is not a good experience or feeling. No, not everyone you come across will try to do this to you, but it's a good thing to be skilled in recognizing when it is happening.
Source: Facebook
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femmefatalevibe · 10 months
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Femme Fatale Playbook: Questions To Ask When Evaluating Your Relationships
Whether it's a friendship, colleague or professional relationship, romantic/sexual relationship, one with a family member, mentors, or with yourself. Here are some questions to ponder when trying to evaluate someone's true character and intentions. Consider the following if you think someone is trying to deceive, manipulate, love bomb, or blindside you in any way.
Do they live with integrity? Not the "I'll start tomorrow" type of integrity, but do they live in alignment with their general life philosophy, opinions, and values?
Do they take accountability for their actions, behaviors, and mistakes? Listen to whether they acknowledge their role in how a situation played out automatically when recounting a story to you. Even when another person is at fault, do they see the situation objectively? Do they play the blame game to make themselves appear like the innocent victim at all times or try to see how their actions may have consequences for others?
When you share your successes with them, is there immediate action to double down on making you feel good or do they automatically claim your win by telling them how it makes them feel or feel about you?
When you make a mistake or share a failure with them, do they seek to understand/offer support, try to distance themselves from your claim/actions, or provide unsolicited advice?
When offering criticism, do they judge your behaviors, attitude, and actions, or do they immediately start evaluating your character?
Do they engage in conversations to win or understand?
Do they make assumptions about your or your perceptions before hearing what you have to say about a particular situation? Do they ask or assume how you're feeling?
In a conflict, do they initiate a conversation by opening a dialogue or immediately jump to criticize you? Do they speak about an issue with you first directly, or do they try to get others on your side behind your back before confronting you?
Are they loyal to you, or do you believe they can "switch sides" at any time? A friend to all is a friend to none.
Do they seek connection or perceive you as a source of consistent attention? Do they ask you how you are or go on endless monologues about themselves/their struggles? When speaking about yourself to them, do they ask questions and seem curious or act dismissive in an attempt to redirect the conversation back to themselves?
Do they put effort into acknowledging your needs, interests, or preferences? Do they do favors or nice things for you that don't necessarily benefit them or relate to their interests, purely because they know you would enjoy it, without having to ask once they know you well?
Do they respect your boundaries? Do they react with understanding and compassion or rage and condescension if they cross them?
Do you feel supported or like you're nagging when expressing your needs to them? Do they value your input or say they do yet dismiss your needs through their actions?
Do they more often say or show that they're a good person? The more someone needs to validate their character, the less likely they've confronted the truth about themselves.
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entropy-sea-system · 1 year
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It's ok to be hurt by rejection(of any kind of attraction or relationship type)!
It's not inherently aphobic to feel hurt by rejection! Just don't disrespect people or ignore consent. Don't expect someone to 'eventually' want that kind of relationship with you(yes, even if its friendship you want!). If you are hurt by rejection don't take it out on the person(s) who rejected you, it is ok to feel hurt though.
(-sincerely, a plato averse apl alloaro who feels sexual rejection intensely and recognises that people can feel hurt about rejection without harming the person who rejected them)
(Don't clown on this post, no attraction negativity or aphobia of any kind please!)
(edit: this post is mainly about how it shouldn't be seen inherently as aphobic or immoral to feel hurt by rejection and it's also about how consent matters and about allowing oneself to feel emotions and express them in ways that don't harm others)
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