#ladyalienist has problems

[ladyalienist]

One thing needs to be said.

It is absolutely true that people cannot read minds and that when it comes to close relationships it’s unjust to expect the other person to figure out what you’re thinking, needing or wanting without a clear communication or at least some clues. It is true.

Just as true, though, it is that at some point at least a couple of things should happen without saying. People should pay some fucking attention to the person(s) they share a close bond with.

I’m not talking (just) about romantic/sexual connection, while clearly this is the kind of relationship that most often comes to mind and has the most painful aftermath in case of failure at creating a stable bond, it applies to friends and relatives as well.

If you keep on claiming to deeply love the person you have an established bond with, but you neglect that bond consistently, failing to pay attention to what the person is trying to say, letting entire days pass with no contacts whatsoever, ignoring messages left, giving no thought to what’s important to that person, forgetting recurrences, prioritising other relationships, you cannot possibly expect that person not to notice the lack of effort and the general slack.

No-one, with the exception of deeply self-absorbed people, expects to be mind-read, but some fucking effort must be made in order to maintain a relationship, and it goes both ways. Otherwise, you cannot be surprised when people leave.

[ladyalienist]

(Luckily this place is for anonymous microblogging and the few people who know me are my people :3)

"You look so cute with your hair tied up like that"

And I'd be even cuter with my face buried between your legs but that's for a different evening.

[ladyalienist]

The thing is I have to periodically remind myself that it doesn’t matter if they loved me or not, that it does not change the fact that they hurt me anyway.

It doesn’t matter when I think about my father. It doesn’t help. The father who told his four year old daughter stupid stories set on a rocketship where everyone ate only chocolate cake and who told his eighteen year old daughter that his favourite character in the book I lent him was his favourite because it reminded him of her… was the same father who consistently remarked failure and made relentless fun at said daughter’s interest, who threatened anti-drug tests at any perceived slight, who had little to no issue yelling and hitting. It doesn’t matter that he loved me the whole time, that he tried, with all his might, to be a good father. He hurt me. I bear scars that resemble his own and he still has a hard time recognising my humanity in spite of that.

It doesn’t matter when I think about my adolescence, about my social circle. I fucking survived having the fanfiquesque codependent homoerotic rivalry to friendship to what-the-fuck-is-this-shitshow, and a weird love-hate relationship, veering into fucking domestic violence while we never lived together, with the biggest bully I’ve ever encountered, AT THE SAME TIME. It was a horrifyingly entangled situation.

And it doesn’t matter that they both cared, in the only way they could. It doesn’t matter. She pulling me on the mattress for an early morning cuddle session and telling me she’d make me pancakes and choosing to spend her eighteenth birthday (of all birthdays!) with me didn’t prevent her from throwing me away when I became an inconvenience.

He getting terrified whenever he deemed me in danger, sharing books and cigarette packs with me, taking the blame for things we did together, didn’t stop him from being an insane pain in the ass. It didn’t stop the constant mocking, the constant remarking that I wasn’t good enough, pretty enough, female enough (ah, how dared I being GNC in front of his religious upbringing!), that I was a monstrous being.

In retrospect he loved me with all his might, in the confused, painful way a sadistic nature nurtured with male socialization can love.

And it doesn’t matter. Because I wanted to kill myself, all the same. And he gets to have the same friends he had at the time, while I had to cut ties, one by one, and this loneliness will follow me wherever I go. I can create a new history, sure, but it’s not the same: sixteen years of my life belong to this monstrosity, and the damage it has done cannot be erased with a sponge hit. I can try to avoid the patterns, but they will follow me all the same, and creating new, healthy connections will always be a bit more of a challenge, something that doesn’t come natural to me.

But boy, do I think about those memories a lot in this period of my life. And it was a bit easier thinking that they never gave a fuck and it was all cruel mockery, pretending in order to get a good laughter behind my back. I have to live now with the awareness that him loudly complaining about me blathering about the importance of having a good environment to grow in was the only way he found to tell me I’d like to make you happy. I have to live with the knowledge that every time he saw me with younger children, with his own brothers, he got quieter because he imagined something he knew he couldn’t have – I think you’d be a good mother. Cannot imagine your husband, but your children, yes.

I have to live with the knowledge that she and I made everyone around us uncomfortable and she sheltered me from most of the mean comments. That I caused pain by going away. That she was used to me coming and going, and then I just wasn’t there anymore. I had different friends and a different life, and while I felt excluded from some of her achievements, she felt like she didn’t belong either.

And it doesn’t matter. I have to periodically remind myself. But the hurt is way different.

[ladyalienist]

The kids at work are always so happy to see me and so unwilling to let me go, pouting when my shift ends and trying to grab me and following me to the gate so that we have those three minutes more.

It's... it's just so fucking bittersweet. It just messes with my head so much.

[ladyalienist]

I get that by radical feminist analysis looks shouldn't be important and the concept of body neutrality and shit but boy do I wish I was a bit less of an uggo sometimes.

[ladyalienist]

So apparently a new revision of the DSM has been published and of course the changes are as stupid as imaginable. A new name for what was called Intellectual Disability, now named Intellectual Developement Disorder (God forbid we call a spade a spade and stop using fucking euphemisms to avoid dealing with "icky" realities). The (re)introduction of Prolonged Grief Disorder (ok) and slight changes to diagnostic criteria in plenty of conditions, mainly substituting symptoms/diagnosis/disorder with problems, just to again keep on using euphemisms because people cannot fucking handle reality.

Interestingly they keep on pushing for inclusive language, muddling the already ridiculous criteria for gender dysphoria and claiming they will also discuss the impact of racism/discrimination in mental distress (and of course the latter is important but allow me to have my doubts they will actually write something that makes sense, especially outside of the USA) and a new guideline for self-harm behaviour (I have the same doubts as before).

✨Things they did not do:✨

exploring the impact of new technologies on mental developement (no changes in the ADHD diagnosis, for real?)

exploring the impact of porn

exploring the impact of social media on distress and social contagion

discuss a new paradigm for trauma-related conditions, including personality disorders (on which my position is slightly different than the one Radbr usually has, but that is not the point)

discuss different forms of treatment for various forms of distress (surely in 10 fucking years there must have been some significant innovation...)

So basically this is a useless fucking thing just to try and justify APA's existence and spending 200 euros on a manual that has little to no substance to provide.

Fucking parasites, that's what they are.

EDIT because of course I do not notice stuff and someone else does:

✨The things they did not do✨ also include:

exploring/discussing the impact of Covid, either for the long-term consequence of the infection itself or the isolation and societal changes in the pandemic period

related to Covid, the awfully big number of people whose grief process never began to begin with: people who are not processing the death of a beloved one, a significant distress that APA would keep in mind if they gave two fucks about human welfare instead of money.

[ladyalienist]

I have a coworker who is legit one of the most handsome men I've ever seen (counting also celebrities) and this is legit a problem because it's a mostly female environment and he causes floods wherever he goes (also with a bit of strain in the relationships between us ladies).

I legit have a hard time not bothering him and being just friendly, and we're talking about... me. I do not flirt as a general rule and usually just do my thing, because I'm reserved and introverted. Plus he's hot but I don't really like him that much as a person and don't think he and I might ever even be friends but God does the pussy take command when he enters the room.

The funniest part of this shit is that he's absolutely unaware of the effect he has on women and when one pays him a compliment he downplays it.

He's an idiot.

It makes things worse.

I don't think this post has a point, except that I have a very hot coworker and that legit causes problems.

[ladyalienist]

One thing that is absolutely enraging me since yesterday.

I happen, quite often, to discuss about TikTok with people who have and use TikTok. We're talking adult people who remember a time before TikTok.

Every single time I argue about the fact that it's addictive, it has negative effect on attention span, motivation, capacity of thinking and emotional responses, with in depth explanation of the neurological processes involved and also talks about the other ethical problems (the inappropriate content, internet safety, the impact of the video format on enviroinment). Yadda yadda, you don't need to hear all that jazz from me.

The thing that enrages me is that I consistently receive the same fucking response:

"But it relaxes me and gives me connections."

It's the same fucking response any fucking addict gives. They go on defensive mode and claim "it relaxes me" and "but to me it's not that bad". Like, I heard that very same excuse from alcoholics, hard drug addicts, gambling addicts, pornography addicts. They all act the fucking same and now it's TikTok's turn. And like, it's undoubtedly true: the relaxation and good feelings are the fucking trick of the addiction, no-one gets addicted to something that feels bad in the beginning, holy shit. But is it relaxation and good feelings, or is it just that you experience withdrawal symptoms from the shit you're addicted to?

And, like, I have this discussion repeatedly with the same two-three persons in my life which I know quite well. None of them leads a good and accomplished life. They all have serious, crippling-level-serious, mental health problems.

And so, since I'm not paid to act as a therapist to them and that would lead only to further fighting, I just say "fine, you do you and I do me, keep using it if it helps."

And what I would like to say is:

"Jenny, you keep on having problems sleeping, you are bedridden most of your days because you have constant migraines and cannot even keep with house chores, you keep on complaining about the fact that your thinking is slowed and you have no attention or consistency in anything you do. You are alone, because there is no real-life connection that helps you deal with all of those issues. And suspiciously, your "relaxation" comes in the form of staring for hours and hours on end at a blue-retroilluminated screen, scrolling and scrolling through very short videos. I dunno, Jenny, I don't really think it does help you in the slightest."

[ladyalienist]

Nothing, absolutely nothing, could have gotten me prepared to actually meeting my friend's boyfriend.

Nothing.

Jesus Christ. That affront to any concept of dignity and intelligence walks around freely, hand in hand with one hell of an amazing woman, and people dare try telling me there is a God.

[ladyalienist]

Ok so I could write an entire book about how In This Moment (female-fronted metalcore band) makes music that reflects the front-woman's journey from "I'm desperately trying to be a Cool Girl" to "I was a victim of incredible violence and now I'm rageful and fuming and you cannot stop me. I am screaming at your face how much I hate you" to "I'm a grown woman now, and I'm going to speak about my own spirituality and my own voice is stronger than ever. You cannot break me anymore".

Like, both lyrics and music reflect this growth. It's consistent.

But, like, I will probably write the big thing another day. I'm too tired.

The fact is, they're going to release an EP which reimagines some of their old songs in the '80's synthrock fashion, and I'm excited about it, because fuck yeah.

And the fact is, late-teenage me stumbled upon this song (I'd advise you check the lyrics if you cannot stand the scream or the too-heavy guitar) in a moment when she was starting to realize the shit she'd been through was actually shit. She was starting to have a language to express what happened to her and how that made her feel, and this song... it was an anthem. In This Moment became my favourite band, my absolute favourite.

And today I found the courage to listen to the new version (it's still pretty heavy I suppose, but it's less aggressive, if you want to give that one a try: the lyrics are exactly the same).

Boy was I mesmerized.

It's entirely different. No screams. Not as much heavy guitar. This is not a yell of rage, this is not an abused victim going feral and hitting back.

This is what remains when you think of the abuse after years and years. This is a musical rendition of an old scar: you're aware it's there, it even hurts sometimes, but when you think of it it doesn't feel like it did before, because the wound healed, the pain found its place in your journey. The abuser has no power on you anymore, it's nothing but a nightmare.

I don't know, I just find it so beautiful.

Thank you Maria.

[ladyalienist]

No matter how hard things get, I can find solace and joy in one simple fact:

I am keeping a basil plant alive.

[ladyalienist]

I don't know how to kindly explain to my friend (IRL, not mutual here so don't feel called out and Taylorpost on main it's alright!) that I couldn't give any fewer fucks about Taylor Swift if I tried and that sending me videos about "the themes of narcissism!" in her songs (sis, that is just the normal reality of being a woman, interacting with men and not being a doormat while you do that) has the only effect of pissing me off.

I don't send you complex analysis of my fave metal songs, because I'm aware you wouldn't be interested. Why, oh why can't you respect my time and energy the same way?

Anyway I tried to listen to her, I really did, I don't hate her as a person or whatever. It's just not interesting to me. And I'd like people who claim to care about me and my lack of energy right now (since I have other priorities currently) to just understand that.

[ladyalienist]

New job place has two donkeys nearby.

I was absolutely delighted in discovering that they are, like, Real. I thought people were kidding me about the presence of donkeys but today I parked and here they were, Flesh and Bones Donkeys.

[ladyalienist]

Reading the sixth Strike book right now and OBOY was Rowling pissed at online fandoms... I'm genuinely laughing at how accurate she is at describing the zoos that fandom spaces are.

[ladyalienist]

It's very nice to do my job. I absolutely love it.

Of course, you might get punched, shoved against walls, yelled at and insulted, but what is it when compared with the sheer joy of never receiving a fucking thank you?

[ladyalienist]

I have booped the donkeys at work!