*Trigger Warnings: Descriptions Of Harassment, Panic Attacks, PTSD Symptoms, Anxiety, Threats Of Physical

netflix gave us the first official look at Heartstopper season 2!!

credits: netflixuk via instagram!!

GUYS WE ARE ONE DAY CLOSER TO HEARING KIT SPEAKING FRENCH, WHO CHEERED??

*Trigger Warnings: Descriptions of su*c*d* attempt, su*c*d*l ideations, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, mental abuse, guilt, anxiety, bipolar depression, PTSD symptoms.* Sunday, May 28th, 2023 Part 6

12:06pm

I’ve realized that I wasn’t broken or shattered when I came to you. I was cracked. Hundreds of jagged lines waiting to be smoothed over. But from Langone to those next 6 weeks, pieces were starting to fall faster than the cracks were sealed. The first hospitalization at Emory, moving to New York, our fights, my Granny passing, more fights, my birthday, to that last Monday that I saw the apartment, to the last time we were together. Everything in-between was beautiful and warm, and those specific moments were pain and suffering.

I thought I had reached my breaking. But the truth is, my breaking point was 100 times higher than I ever thought. My mask was too thick, right? So thick that as tears rolled down my face onto the floor and as “I’m sorry” rode along my shaky breaths, the splashes and shakes couldn’t be heard.

You know, it was the smallest thing that pitched me off the tallest cliff that is my breaking point. It was another of your fights, another “open conversation”. I bought my tickets to go see our cousin for Christmas, something that you not only suggested, but I informed you that I decided upon the week before. And, as I listened to you say it yet another slap to your face (this should be a new record at this point, what’s the count, 6?), as I felt the quivering of my anxiety claw at my lungs, as you brought up trying to buy my tickets as if it wasn’t the first time I was hearing it, as I felt a good moment fade… I knew I needed to leave.

To rid you of my presence, my two suitcases, of my laptop, of the heels I bought as my birthday present to myself that I returned because you suggested (another irresponsible spend), of the list I made you of all my favorite foods of me washing the dishes and cleaning the bathroom and staying home and watching the cats as you and Gem traveled on a trip that I was invited on first and of the packet that you and Gem promised you would help me with but didn’t and of me with my angstand my sorrowand my guiltand my anxietyand my depressionand me…

Part 1 -- Part 2 -- Part 3 -- Part 4 -- Part 5 -- Part 7

Some union basics:

1. Striking is the LAST RESORT. If a union is at the place where a strike is being proposed it is because they have been bargaining for a long time and exhausted all their other options.

2. Before a strike happens, all the members vote. Everyone is very aware of the status of negotiations long before they’re made public. But if a strike is occurring it’s because an overwhelming majority voted to strike—you want almost everyone in the union to agree before you take such a huge step.

3. Strikes are difficult but necessary demonstrations of workers’ collective power. The hope is that your labor is so essential that the bosses lost profits will make them come back to the bargaining table. The bosses are hoping that the workers will starve to death.

4. Working during a strike is called scabbing. Coming in from an outside industry to do work during a strike is sometimes called crossing the picket line. Both send you straight to hell.

*Trigger Warnings: Descriptions of physical abuse, mental abuse, emotional abuse, parental abuse, verbal abuse, child neglect, threats, anxiety, panic attacks, violence towards children.* Monday, June 19th, 2023 Part 4 6:32pm

When I was 15, I was forced to get a job to pay for all of my school fees. I had to convince my future manager to give me the position illegally because I would eventually turn 16 in 3 months, which was the legal age to work at the time. After I got the job, you told my mom to force me to give her all of my paychecks to help her with the bills and groceries, and confiscated my money to use as an allowance for me. So, when I continued to be your perfect little pawn, then, I would slowly get the money I needed for my school activities. You used that opportunity to stop helping my mother with the bills, even though she made half as much as you, and a little after I was 16, you had 2 new cars and started your impulsive Amazon shopping habit that turned the extra bedroom into the “workout room” that it is today. I wasn’t even allowed to save for a car because I didn’t have my permit, which is because you and mom decided not to teach me until a year later because I wasn’t “making enough to get a car in the first place”. How does that make sense?

I decided to take inspiration from my father and turn vegan during my sophomore year. I had to learn how to grocery shop on my own for my diet, and cook for myself because he didn’t need “his wife” taking extra time to focus on my “unnecessary needs”, which was fine, I learned so much from that time. But, he also asked me questions everyday about the benefits of veganism and the recipes I was making and how much things costs because he wanted to “cut down from 330lbs to 260lbs”. He tried to make me feel antagonized for being vegan and that I was a burden on my mother for it, but also showed interest in it, then all these years later, he’s vegetarian now because he was inspired by me.

When I was 17 and a senior in high school, I didn’t have the motivation to truly apply for scholarships and to college due to my severe depression. No one ever asked or checked in on how that process was going, because it was assumed that I was doing great in school and would go to college, true, but still. I received no assistance searching for schools and scholarships, and it was because of my teachers that I received my full-ride scholarship to an almost Ivy League-level school. I wasn’t even excited when I received it because I was anxious to tell you all. And, I was right to, because you both weren’t even excited when I told you, the interaction lasted 2 seconds. Yet, you both turned around and gushed to everyone who would listen and on social media of how proud you were of me and how hard I worked. You wouldn’t even tell me that yourself.

I told my counselor about some of the trauma that you put us through because I wrote about it in my essays. I also wrote about how I found out that you were beating my mom, after she told me that she wanted to divorce you. I made the counselor promise me that she wouldn’t report it because the abuse stopped years ago, but while I was house-sitting for my mom’s boss, CPS came to the house. I admitted that I talked to the counselor about some things that happened at home, and my mom told me that she was glad that I was staying at that house because you were threatening to kill me.

I was part of the ever-controversial class of 2020. So, before the COVID lockdowns started, I was already planning for prom and graduation. I asked my “parents” for assistance paying for some of the costs needed to have the prom and graduation that I deserved, I guess I should have expected that you would say no. And, it was a slap in the face when you both told me to research how to make my graduation invitations and find a photographer, to not only pay for by myself, but to send to all of my and my mom’s family and to yours. And after the lockdown, and all those plans were canceled, you only threw me a party after my Nana told me she was making me a cake.

James decided to “gift” me his second pickup truck for graduating. Not mentioning all of the functional issues the truck had, and directing me to pay the $3,000 dollars worth of work that needed to be done to it. Then, after asking him if the truck would survive the 3-hour trip to Atlanta, he told me that he didn’t know and that I should continue fixing it. 2 weeks of me starting college, the truck was out of commission and he refused to help me figure out what to do. And a year later, after paying $1,500 of parking fees for a broken truck, he finally came down and scraped the truck, but kept all the money from it. It’s no surprise though, since through my 2 and a half years of college before this “gap year”, I never received any financial support from my adults.

I spent every break trying to avoid coming home. I took advantage of the fact that my college offered to house students who have abusive households over the break. Especially after my first Christmas break, where mom and I had our fight about literally all the trauma that I have endured from my supposed “father-figures”, that she continues to ignore, excuse, defend, and support. When my school denied me the opportunity to stay on campus the summer after my sophomore year, I thought I was going to be homeless. I wasn’t allowed back home after the fight, and I had no where else to go. But, after talking to my dad’s side of the family, I went back to where I grew up to stay with them. Of course, only to endure more abuse and more “conversations” of them defending my dad, because apparently, my whole family is fucked all the way up!

After I returned for my junior year, I thought things were going to be great. I was finally moving on from all the shit that you and everyone else did to me. But of course, scary men still exist, and after experiencing yet another triggering, traumatic event, I was done with this life that I’ve been dealt. Hence, the medical leave, or as most people refer to it, “a gap year”, and moving to New York with my sister, and then, having no choice but to move back home when everything fell apart.

Part 1 -- Part 2 -- Part 3 Part 5

boruto redesigns & neji isn’t a ghost!

Tuesday, Nov. 1st, 2022 Part 2

4:35pm

The second thing we talked about was Angel (again) needing to draw the line between her and Gem vs. me. She brought up how she needs to pour into herself, the same with Gem, but they haven’t been able to because they have been so focused on me (?) and their jobs. She also talked about how I enter the living room when they are having conversations between just them, and how I need to be more mindful of that. She then felt the need to say once again that she will always talk and choose Gem over me and to not take it personally, which I don’t (?). 

But, what’s bothering me is why this has to be a conversation topic that keeps coming up? I don’t mind if Angel or Gem don’t always tell me things and want to keep things within their relationship, but I’m not the one coming up to them asking for them to share things with me. They share a lot with me, to begin with, off of their own decisions to do so. Even though she said that she doesn’t want this to feel like roommates, I don’t feel that way at all. It feels uncomfortable because it feels like I’m invading their space and their relationship. 

I will definitely be more mindful of their conversations, and will try to leave the house more often to satisfy that need. I respect their relationship, but it’s not like it hasn’t dawned on me that they’re my older sisters and that my stay is temporary.

Part 1 -- Part 3

Chim: hey where’s Buck?

Hen: I don’t know, hold on. We’ll find him, just look at Eddie.

Chim: *looking at Eddie* Buck isn’t with him though.

Hen: just follow his line of sight.

Hen & Chim: *follows Eddie’s eyes to See Buck standing across the room talking to someone else*

Chim: oh my god-

Hen: yeah, that works 90 percent of the time 🙄

I hope everyone is having a wonderful beginning of pride month! This is my first pride since coming out and I'd like to share a little bit of my own perspective this pride.

I'm 22 and I only came out a few months ago. I've been super lucky and all of my friends and family have been super accepting. The worst part about coming out has just been me.

My whole life I thought I was straight, I didn't have many crushes (see later learning about demisexuality as well) and any that I did have were very normal cis guys from school. I never had any reason to think I wasn't straight and that was perfectly ok.

My friend group has always leaned on the queerer side. Most of them were out by the time we graduated high school or shortly after and all of them talked about how they always knew that it was always there.

I've known what pansexual is since I was 14 and I'd never thought of it as a label for me, people were pretty but that was it to me, I liked guys.

There's a guilt you feel sometimes when you come out later than your peers. Whether it be like me and you're still young or years down the line. You're still just as valid but there's that part of you that feels guilty for not knowing sooner.

It's my first pride and I feel guilty.

I feel guilty because every year before now pride was for my friends with me as the respectful ally following their lead. I've never even gone to a pride parade, always seeing that as something they got to do, something they deserved to do and I didn't want to intrude.

I know I shouldn't feel guilty but I do.

I hope one day there's a part of me that doesn't feel like I'm just faking these feelings so I can be included, that it's ok I didn't always know but for now there is.

I'm grateful to everyone celebrating pride with me this year, my partner, my friends both here and out in the world and my family.

Thank you for reminding me I'm valid even when I can't always see it.

Happy pride everyone, especially if this is your first one.

❤️🧡💛💚🩵💜

That's a great table design (credit)