#therapy musings

[madanimalscientist]

Today in therapy talking about how at work I am always chipper and happy to help in and help others and always smiling and upbeat, but if I'm feeling negative emotions beyond 'mild/moderate annoyance' I hold it in until I can get home or around one of the people on my short list of 'people I feel safe being vulnerable around' because I don't like people seeing me vulnerable....like there was an incident that was relatively minor and work handled it really well and honestly it didn't annoy me that much but what did annoy me was like the 8 people asking me 'are you ok? are you sure?' even after I said I was fine and while they were well-meaning it made me feel like they were being intrusive and/or I wasn't performing emotion to their standards and either way it made me feel like a prickly hedgehog.

My therapist asked if it was because I thought they weren't taking me at my word and that upset me

Me: Oh no, even if I wasn't okay I would've said I was. I just want them to stop asking about it, they're not close enough to get to see me not in perfect control of my emotions.

*lightbulb moment*

Me:.....so there's this tv show, Hazbin Hotel, and it's really good, and all of a sudden I am now realizing one reason -why- a specific character is my favorite.....weeelp

[a-dauntless-daffodil]

WHAT is going on with Vaggie please i need to pry open her skull

girl stood out from the Exorcist with her single-stripe wings, they get torn off, she gets kicked out-

her hair was short like Lute's back then

probably another thing all Exorcists are supposed to be in lock step about- bloodlust, murder, looking almost identical in uniform (vaggie thought no one would know her out of uniform) (Wrong)

Charlie finds her. Charlie, who has long hair, and 3 years later Vaggie's grown her hair out too

and it's a sign of her new life with Charlie. as Carmilla kicks her butt Vaggie complains she's "not used to fighting with long hair-"

she hasn't had to fight in a long time

she's been CHOOSING not to, new life, new hair style, new her-

EXCECEPT not. Her long hair? Has the Exorcist double stripes that her old wings never did

her new clothes? oh yes she's got a skirt now, she's in red to match Charlie, she's dressed to manage a hotel not slaughter people- but the thigh highs and long gloves of the Exorcist uniform are still there too

it's there even when she gears up to FIGHT them

and when her wings come back- When her NEW wings grow in???- they still have just that ONE stripe. THEY didn't change. The hair thing, it isn't her aging into double stipes in three years- it's either natural and something the short hair hid, or deliberate and new, and which one would be more unsettling?

which one would be more fucked up- finding out you finally fit in when you can't anymore, or still trying to fit in when you absolutely don't want to?

it's like she grew out her hair to get away from her past, but also, it's a reminder of it? wings gone. long, twice-banded hair flowing down her back instead, filling in the space where her wings used to be

why the red X over her lost eye? a mirror of an Exorcist's mask-

(some have the right eye crossed out, some the left, one of their few small variations)

why not just a normal patch? Why not a hairstyle that'd cover it completely?? Why underline the reminder and MAKE it impossible to ignore- is she proud of it? The eye she lost for not doing something she knew was wrong? Why is she keeping so much of the Exorcist look- habit? nostalgia? homesickness? guilt????

Or is she retaking them for herself? Vaggie what are you thinking while you do all this- you HATE angels and heaven and the Exorcists and everything you were- Did you think it all meant something different, before realizing the truth? Something you could follow and be proud of?

are you trying to make all those things mean everything you once thought they did

or is being an exorcist still such a big part of you that you, shit liar that you are, can't cut it out of your life as easily as Lute did with your eye?

.... but your wings. They came back different.

they look even less like a proper Exorcists wings than before

(maybe because heaven didn't give them to you this time. you found them down here, in hell, with Charlie)

you AREN'T an exorcist! you don't kill sinners, you fight for them, you're trying to help save them, you're trying to redeem yourself right along side them, why why why WHY

why do you keep looking so much like the people you hate?-

oh. right. you hate yourself don't you. only... it's not ALL of yourself

i don't think your wings would have come back, if you hated the part of you that loves Charlie (it's the only thing you're clinging to, in fact. the hope that you won't fail her. that you can help her) (you hate yourself each time you fail- but you still try again) (you've never failed when it comes to that) (you've never given up on somehow being who she needs you to be)

do you REALIZE there's more to you now than the parts you hate?

hmm. i wonder

[cutekoala1001]

POV: You’ve been drawing for clients all week, and you finally decide to stop and draw something for yourself. Wyd? 👀

Anatomy practice

That present for your brother

Backgrounds

Hands

♡✨BUSTER MOON✨♡

[lady-phasma]

Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen - Dune: Part 2

Don't mock me, woman

[justaz]

thinking about immortal merlin going to a super famous artist who is known for having super lifelike paintings a few hundred years after arthur dies and telling them their story and having the artist paint arthur just by merlin’s descriptions instead of by a recreation with his magic and just reliving his life in camelot mentally while sitting on this artists couch as they bring arthur back to life for merlin

[coffeexxcigarettes]

Extinguish

-

I fear I am made of

The fractured sins of my parents.

Reflected back at me,

Pushing the current to the surface.

In moments of silence;

In moments of solitude.

To be told I am kind,

I am thoughtful,

Goes against my nature

When I long for the soul

Of that which does not belong to me;

Can never belong to me.

If I am called beautiful

By several

My body shakes as embers spark.

Remember who you are.

I've destroyed more people than I can bare to admit.

Their kindness haunts me in ways similar to that of

An endlessly beating heart

Beneath my floorboards.

Can't you hear it, my love?

I believe I was always made for chaos,

Unintentional violence,

Agonizing compassion-

Barely able to stomach when my flames would

Pull another to destruction.

...And then there was you.

x

[movietonight]

There are few things I find more annoying than the coquette girlblogger crowd

[marshmallowwitharubberband]

I have a complicated relationship with Jiang Cheng.

As a character, I love his complexity, but I especially love how realistically it portrays one of the real-life outcomes of growing up in a violent, emotionally-repressive environment. When every display of emotion is labeled as weakness and answered with violence, some people eventually become programmed to turn any emotion into agression, see everything as an attack, and become secretly-people-pleasers with zero tolerance to frustration.

Actually, the Jiang siblings are excellent portraits of the different outcomes of what growing up in violence can do to you: you either become small and unnoticeable to survive, you become the kindest person ever so no one goes through the same, your self-worth gets reduced to what you can do for others, you go into substance abuse...

Thinking about it, I wouldn't be surprised if MXTX studied psychology in some form because the personalities resulting of her character's backgrounds are surprisingly realistic, for the most part, but back to Cheng-Cheng.

Guy had all the pressure put on him by his emotions-hating helicopter mom. Yanli got a pass for being a woman and being "destined" to be a wife, and maybe Mme. Yu may have projected a little, maybe she thought if she, herself, was sweeter and meeker JFM would treat her better? Idk, but the fact is, Yanli was allowed to not be "strong" ('Cause Mommy Yu is definitely the type of person to equal strength to agression). WWX "didn't count" because he was just a servant, so she merely ground his self-worth into the dirt.

Poor Jiang Cheng had to bear the brunt of his mom's horrible expectations and it broke him. His agression is more like a scared animal's, he lashes out his fear and frustration as violence because it's the only "acceptable" way, the only way he learned to be taken seriously or handle emotions at all. Much like today's wall-punching macho wannabes.

I wouldn't be surprised if Jiang Cheng, in a modern AU, would be sucked into the red pill rhetoric, he's exactly the lonely, stressed, emotionally hurt and vulnerable demographic those jerks target.

So yeah, he is a complex character with very valid motivations and a horribly tragic story handled in a very realistic way, I love that.

As a person, though, I really, really hate him and admit that, at some points in the book I would skip over his dialogue because yeah, yeah, your suffering, your sacrifices, boo hoo, poor you, my god, just shut up, everyone in this place has suffered and lost and is majorly messed up, you're not special! (At least he didn't actively murder anyone)

But I am aware it's because he reminds me, uncannily accurately, of someone who irl emotionally abused me all through childhood while the other adults around me did nothing. They, too, were obsessed with what I "owed" them both literally and metaphorically, and showed their affection with criticism, aggressiveness, and irate explosions. And while I understand them more now and the cycle of violence they were a victim of, I cannot forgive their actions. And I kin Wei Wuxian too hard to ever forgive Jiang Cheng.

But I do like how The Untamed softened him a lot and took care to emphasize that he was just an insecure kid who wanted to be accepted and the universe made him its chew toy. It re-portrayed him as that younger sibling who just wants to be included in his big bro's adventures and keeps being pushed aside by everybody. TU JC is my sweet little baby and needs a hug.

Book JC can go fry asparagus.

[connecting-the-stars]

Carmy drawing Sydney with the same detail and dedication as he did the sketch for a beautiful dish he was brainstorming when.

[tinystepsforward]

so i have notifications turned on for my mother on facebook mostly to keep an eye on what the fuck she's up to. bc she and my father are like, "broke the law to start an underground fundie home church during covid lockdown and still aren't vaccinated and are incredibly gullible but also potentially dangerous" levels of Whatever That Is, right?

and she's been relatively normal for a while — photos of sunsets and flowers she saw and food my siblings make and whatever. except she's just shared a post from a like. "hope for hurting parents of wayward children" type fb page that she follows that's all like "remember... [list of bad things in the bible that lasted 40 days]. your day 41 as a parent will come :)))) your child will return"

and i cannot overstate enough how much that fb page and its associated website links out to multiple counselors, orgs, and websites which practice conversion therapy. like mom, sorry to break it to you but your church/the school you sent me to/etc actually put me through it three times already and it didn't take. and also you didn't notice it was happening, fucking somehow. and ALSO i've been with my wife for TEN YEARS like

anyway this just means that once i get my next t shot on wednesday i double extra need to get back into powerlifting bc i wanna be as jacked as possible before the family trip back home for her 60th. if she thinks she's enduring a trial god's sending her way then i better make it an extra virtuous one

[bunnysrph]

[supernovasolace]

I'm a former content creator who's been largely absent from social media for a couple of years. I told myself I was going to take a short mental health break from all the negativity, but between severe burnout and a car accident upending my entire life, I've been gone a LOT longer than I'd expected.

Now that I've recovered some spoons and am working towards self-employment again, I know getting myself back out into the public square is unavoidable. But to be honest, I've been dreading the thought of being visible again. Because this time, I'm doing so as an openly neurodivergent, disabled, queer, and nonbinary person—and I know that puts an even bigger target on my back than the one I crumpled under.

Lately I've been trying to prepare myself and harden my mental defenses, and today I was thinking about how strange it is that random people take time out of their day to leave shitty or hateful comments. That's when I realized: I've never done that. My family and friends don't do that. My target audience doesn't do that. Creators I look up to and want to learn from don't do that.

So if we can rule out all of those people, I'm left with just one question: why should I give a flying fuck about what anyone else thinks? If criticism isn't coming from someone who I am in community with, learning from, or trying to reach out to, why should their input hold any weight?

Moving forward, I'm making a personal rule that I will only accept negative feedback from people whose opinion SHOULD matter to me. If a critic shows good intentions and is genuinely offering me a chance to improve my art, fantastic. But if not? Sir, this is a Wendy's—and you just ordered a block.

[melverie]

I don't know if they did it on purpose but the game is so evil to have the day right after 'Eat Solomon's Cooking Day' be 'Trauma Day'

[ropesbypatricia]

Artist: Nathan Jackson

My homage - 2018

This homage was a crescendo, I see in retrospect, of a moment in timespace when I gave myself over completely to fixation and obsession - and painted my adoration with a jute brush.

[shelovesplants]

North muse candle company ✨️ mystic moon phases candle 🕯 with pieces of rose quartz 🔮smoked berries and amber sent 🩷

[kotaerukoto]

You ever read something and think "things would be different if Makoto were here?" No? Just me? Okay