I Think That One Of The Worst Things A Family Member Could Ask A Child Going To Therapy Is If They're

Role of Conflict and Violence in the Society

For centuries, humans have built themselves up by tearing each other down - countless wars, communal violence, hate crimes, violation of human rights and mass killings. In such a world where one thrives off of conflict and violence, it is imperative that we understand the role both plays, especially in this day and age, especially because death and destruction no longer shocks us, no longer disturbs us, especially since we've become passive and immune to all the violence around us. Today, in this day and age, conflict and violence are not just political issues, it is a personal issue - the political has become personal and it is becoming incredibly difficult to draw the line where one begins and where the other ends.

The growing hate among humans can be seen via the gruesome crime of mass shootings - an extremely widespread and prevalent issue in the US at present. In 2019 alone, there have been over a hundred incidents, most of which were hate crimes against people of color and lgbtq+ people. What was once brushed away as an issue of gun control - a political issue - is now considered to be something personal because a lot of these mass shootings take place in schools, in most of these situations queer people, Latinx people and Black people are targeted, and they could be a neighbor, a relative, a friend, a family member, an acquaintance. According to some studies, the United States has had more mass shootings than any other country in the past years - which shows the importance of proper gun control and strict laws against gun violence. But this is not solely an issue of gun control, it is also a human rights issue, it is proof that prejudice against minorities is on a hike. In the prose 'Whisper of the Bodhi Leaves', Buddhist monks are killed by shooters solely because of their religious differences, because they were from two different communities. Conflict between two communities or violence against a particular community occurs when the in-group feeling goes of out hand; when that happens, one starts to place their community or group on a pedestal and starts viewing different groups as "others"- someone who isn't worthy to be considered their equal. From here stems prejudice and then later on, discrimination. There are so many different forms of discrimination, so many groups discriminated against, remaining apathetic or apolitical in such situations only encourages the oppressor and never helps the oppressed.

The in-between part of depression is the worst. Where you can feel the anti-depressants working, you can feel yourself getting better - but then can you claim to have depression anymore? What if someone accuses you of faking it? What if someone expects too much, but you're not there yet, but they don't get it because they see you're better? What if your body want to sleep all the time but your mind is learning to wake itself up? What then?

one day, my therapist asked me what 'my person' means to me. as a person with attachment and abandonment issues, it was one major issue that flagged up whenever we spoke about the people in my life. I gave it some thought, kept away my deep rooted shame and embarrassment and tried to answer honestly. what does it mean to me to have a person, a permanent person, while being aro-ace and neurodivergent+MAD™. this is what it means to me - i want a person to look at, to make eye-contact with when i have to do public speaking; somebody to ground my floating mind that tries to leave the physical reality of an anxiety inducing event. I want a person to save me seats when I have to attend social gatherings and I'm looking around the room in all my awkward glory to find a place where i belong. I want a person to text me in the middle of the night, telling me they need me; and whom I can text when I need them without hesitation. I want a person whom I can feel comfortable being physically affectionate with without either of us having to worry about intentions or invitations. that's what it means to me to have a person. somebody who's my comfort being, safe space (and vice versa). somebody who will look to me when there's a request to pick a person. somebody who will stick by my side in a party when I'm feeling low, and somebody who will let me be when I'm feeling jittery. somebody who trusts me to be there for them, who unloads on me, and chooses me.

i write a lot about this because I yearn a lot for this. I don't know if I'll ever stop.

um so we have a group assignment and a person I already hold bias against (despite being a friend *sigh* splitting sucks) suggested a topic after I did and people liked that more + when I said it's all interconnected and could be a common one topic, another friend said ooh yes but then former she was like ya but let's not make it complicated and then everyone agreed and now I feel pissed and annoyed and I feel like I wanna tell them to fuck off and that I leave the group and that I'm not going to say anything else if they're not taking anything I'm saying (even if their points are a lil valid) and I'm taking it all personally and I wanna rage against all of them fuckers eventhough one of the other people in the group is a best friend and I feel sick with anger and I hate bpd fuck this fuck everything

I knew my Tumblr would glitch, so I took screenshots 🙂🙃

I reaaaaaaaallllllyyyyy wanna re-watch OITNB but I don't think I'm emotionally ready to see Poussey again~

you think that someone understands you, that someone in your family finally gets you, but then it turns out that - nope, not really. it was all pretend, all fake, nothing deep, nothing genuine. they never understood, they tried to, maybe pretended to, but they never truly did. I opened up to my uncle about how I couldn't commit to anything and about me having no motivation and even sent him snippets from my diary about how guilty I felt that I'm wasting my family's money and effort and stuff like that, and he used it against me. He fucking used it against. He tried to get me to rejoin this online yoga class but I didn't want to, so he threatened me. He said that he'd pay for an entire year's worth of classes and I'll have to attend it then. Said that I wouldn't be able to stop in the middle cause I'd feel guilty/then it would mean I had no value for his money. I confronted him a few days after, asking him why he did that and he explained that he was concerned about my health, really, genuinely terrified because he knew how horrible bad physical health was because he, himself suffered a lot and he didn't want that for me - so even though he didn't know the impact that would have on my mental health, he knew the impact bad physical health would have on me, he kind of risked the unknown for the known (mental health for physical health). I don't agree with what he did, nor will I ever be able to open up to him again, but I understood where he was coming from and I striked a deal with him. Anyway, that's that. Then he continued proving that he doesn't truly get it. He tried to tell my mom to control me and take away my phone/laptop so that I would be forced to sleep early cause I wouldn't have anything else to do. Bear in mind that he's there's a lot of family dynamic that I'm not mentioning, so he's not the worst, or even bad, per say. But I guess I kinda jinxed it when I told my mom that he's the only one who understands me in the family a long time ago, I guess that's biting me in the ass. I don't know if I can ever open up to him or show vulnerability to anyone again - family I mean. I had told him I get bad thoughts at night, intrusive, dark thought long ago and he pointed that out today too, in front of my mom - though she was on her phone and prolly didn't hear, but still. I hate adults. I hate them. I hate them. I hate them. They're never transparent, never straight with you. They could use anything you tell them against you when they feel like they're at their wit's end. And I fucking can't. I'm fragile okay, I'm fragile and sensitive and I can't handle all this. I just want to not exist anymore - I'm NOT going to kill myself, but I just want to die.

you know what I realised? How conditioned we are to be mean, to be rude, to be tough. From parents being "strict" with their children, strict here translating to disrespectful, disregarding and just plain mean, to friends insulting each other and being rough with each other, scared of showing vulnerability and affection, we've become incapable of being sensitive and soft. asking someone to be nice, to be kind is mocked and unacknowledged. we've become so used to this, we consider kindness either fake - a trap, a romantic gesture or something that we refuse to accept, that we're unable to accept. why is that so? why can't we all try and unlearn this?

the whole concept of karma is rooted in casteist beliefs - getting what you deserve? being born into a particular style of life because of the actions of your previous life? suffering or being privileged in the life you have at present because of the actions of your ancestors/as a consequence of the actions of your previous life? all of the above = used to perpetuate casteism. The whole foundation of the caste system stands on this concept, of being born into a particular caste because of what you did in your previous life(-ves). Apart from it being casteist, I personally, don't agree with any of this. People do not get what they deserve (don't read it using a cynical tone, I'm using a matter of fact tone); a small child who has a chronic illness that's sure to result in death has not warranted it, no matter what they must or must not have done in their so called past life - that is, if you believe in such a concept - warrants such a form of suffering; a person who has been or is being abused does not deserve it, again, same reasoning; a horrible person who gets to get away with all the horrible things they've done don't deserve that, but it still happens; a person having a debilitating illness hinders who're their supposed to be isn't what they deserve; people being discriminated against for being a certain way, being born a certain way or whatever isn't because of their previous life ka actions or because they somehow deserve it; there are people who're doing good in life even though they've done bad actions and vice versa, there are people who did bad™ things which had bad consequences with good intentions, there are people who've done good their entire life but who still suffer, who's to say who deserves what, who's to say who deserves something because they must've been bad in their previous life, what gives an outsider the right to judge someone this way; your child being a "troublemaker" (that's a censored term BTW) isn't because you did something bad in your previous life and this is your fate now - I don't even want to begin to point out everything's that wrong and insensitive and messed up about that; you having a privileged life, being born into a family that's privileged, isn't because your ancestors did something great or worked harder than the ancestors of a family which is suffering (socially/economically, whichever), a family which isn't as privileged as yours - that's a very problematic thing to say, not only because of how ignorant and doused in privilege it is, but also because of how casteist it is. It sounds holier than thou, as if what your ancestors did was morally superior, in any way superior, and that the other person's marginalisation is because their ancestors weren't good enough, didn't do enough - you being born into a good, comfortable home was because your ancestors were somehow better than that person's, who's now suffering in life. My grandfather has used this argument so many times to point out the why to which I was born into the family I was born into and not into a family like our neighbor's, who aren't as privileged or well-to-do as we are, apparently it's because they all worked harder and did their "duties" (another term which pisses the fuck out of me) properly and so I was also gifted with this life, wtfffffff. Karma isn't simply tit for tat, there's much more to it - this concept implies that what people get in life is what they asked for through their actions (karma also refers to all your actions in your previous being accumulated and you having to face the consequence or the fruits of it in your following lives) which is fucking victim blame-y, a scapegoat and I do not stand by it. It could offer solace to people - the whole concept, I mean - when something bad's been done to them, I understand that, but that's a personal 'I want to feel good, so I'll believe in this' thing, and that's upto you, but on a wider scale, I'm not at all comfortable with people saying that 'karma' is the reason for what happens to people in life. It honestly disgusts me.

I was fourteen when I first read 50 Shades of Grey, or as Catherine Scott puts it — that book. What I appreciate most about it is not the spank-bank material it gave me, but the world it introduced me to; the hole that took me to my own wonderland. As my kink journey - in theory, mind you - progressed, I discovered aspects of myself I don’t think even therapy would’ve helped me access; the way I needed to be loved, the way I needed to be taken care of, the way I needed to feel small to grow, the way I needed to give myself over to reclaim autonomy.

Kink took me to regression, regression to self-awareness, and self-awareness to a yearning I sometimes cannot contain inside my body because of how large and all-consuming it is, how much space it occupies, and how it swallows me whole, especially on my worse days.

The question “how could non-sexual kink possibly be therapeutic?” has many, many answers; it is the hope I get when I imagine how I would no longer have to be responsible for myself; the relief I feel, knowing that someone wants the best for me, and letting them take over my entire being would help keep me alive; the knowledge that even though I am capable of taking care of myself, it is too much of a burden, too much of a leach sucking my battery, and so I choose to give it away, pass it over.

Someone who would squeeze my thigh, and tap it twice to indicate I need to lower my voice in public spaces, instead of an explicit “reduce your volume”, inadvertently triggering my rejection sensitivity dysphoria; someone who would wrap me up in a blanket and make me tea, cuddling me, crushing my body, until I come back from an episode; someone to make sure I can do the things I want to do, that inhibition due to my executive dysfunction wouldn’t make me a completely useless person; someone whose idea of what is best for me is my idea of what’s best for me; someone who would take care of me, when it hurts too much to take care of myself; someone I trust enough to kneel in front of because I feel shame choking me when I imagine myself submitting to anyone else; someone who chooses to stay; someone I can be a child with without fear of annoyance or judgement; someone I can be awkward with, weird with, loud with; someone whose rationality never hinders or limits their emotionality; someone to give me a healthy alternative to the unsafe pain my coping mechanism provides; someone to provide the sensation of hurt without causing me harm; someone whom I feel safe with even while constrained, blindfolded, all senses switched off; someone to gently squeeze my neck when my thoughts are too loud; someone to take over conversations when I face a sudden bout of energy loss; someone whose energy is dominating, all-encompassing; someone who would be my advocate, my shield, and sword; someone gentle, someone soft, someone who would never let me give up on myself.

Regression ≠ kink, for myself.

-kpm ©