I'm A Red-blooded Corn-fed AMERICAN MAN And If I Wanna Get My Tits Chopped Off That's My God-given Right

reblog if you worried about your abusive parent more than they ever worried about you

Happy Pride!

If your parent is a covert narcissist, then most of the usual narcissistic parent information won’t ring as true, and instead you’ll be in a situation where you feel great worry, concern, protectiveness, desire to care for, desire to rescue, feeling responsible for, and longing to be acknowledged and loved by your parent.

Your parent was always the ‘weak one’, and you were the one who was strong, and there to protect them. There was a neverending stream of afflictions plaguing your parent – they struggled with the child care, they had a tough time being married to the other parent, they were sick, they were bullied by the other family members/people at work, they had too much housework to do, or the housework too hard and they were too weak to handle it, they worried about the future, they didn’t know what to do or how to go about life, they lacked support, nobody took care of them, nobody gave them affection. And you wanted to rescue them so badly. You were there for everything, if something needed to get done, you tried your best to do it in order to spare your parent the extra worry and work, you anxiously tried to help them as they were sick, you stood up for them when they were bullied, you reassured them and tried to take as much stress as possible on yourself, only so they would have to do less.

It never worked. Regardless of how much housework you did, or how hard you tried to ease the tensions or make sure they have the peace and care to get better, they would never be quite okay. And it always felt like you were so close to getting your parent to a place where they’d be fine, and then, they would finally have space in their life to love you. Because, in your head, your parent did love you, only they were always so preoccupied with their own life, they could never relax enough to show it to you. So they never did anything you did for them – they didn’t protect you, or stand up for you when you were bullied/abused, they didn’t nurture you or take care for you when you were sick, they didn’t help with your studying or chores, they didn’t give you their time or affection. And you felt empty, but you understood it was only because they couldn’t, they were never okay enough to do it. You had to be strong enough to handle it all for them.

Sometimes, they’d lash out at you, and say things you were sure they didn’t mean. And you understood even then, they only did it because other people were bullying them, and they had to lash out at someone. Or they didn’t understand it was wrong. Or they didn’t realize it would hurt you because they were used to you being so tough. You still believed that deep inside, they loved you. Hateful words from them hurt you immensely, but you couldn’t find it in your heart to accuse such a troubled and anxious person of being a bad parent, you didn’t even want to think about how badly this would hurt them. Getting angry at them was likewise impossible, because you understood just too well where they were coming from, and you felt so bad and worried for them already, you couldn’t even think about turning against them. You didn’t want them to have to deal with life without you, when it was already so hard for them.

It was next to impossible for you to realize that you were neglected, because you were the one who was supposed to provide care and solutions. You didn’t have love, but in your heart, the love existed, just out of your reach, just a bit more work to get it. And if it never happened, you blamed yourself for not being enough to get it. Abuse from someone who you were so worried and concerned for, doesn’t read as an abuse, but as action from a person in desperation with no other option but to lash out. Your entire experience growing up was the one of ‘unavoidable’ and ‘necessary’ pain. 

It's officially Banned Books Week, so now is as good a time as any to remind everyone that libraries still get frequent challenges to books on our shelves. Books continue to be challenged, banned, and even burned. I'm a librarian in a blue state, yet one of my neighboring libraries has recently been the target of book bannings and threats of violence (they had to shut down an all-ages LGBTQ event due to these threats too).

Please support your local libraries. If you want more books by queer and disabled authors and authors of color, TELL US. Give us recommendations. Check out books and ebooks when we get them in. Tell us when you write books too. We're here to make information and stories accessible.

P.S. And if you notice patrons or staff acting like assholes (particularly managers) please let someone know. Library government is weird, so a lot of libraries aren't union and also don't have any sort of HR. Trust me, if you frequently notice someone being a jerk, chances are good everyone else has to and has been stonewalled.

Happiness Will Come To You.

Also, that one guy.... "God forbid they make a movie for men." ?!?!??

**cackling b/c dude utterly misses the point**

BARBIE (2023) dir. Greta Gerwig +⭐letterboxd reviews by men

True for me, true for you 💓

You deserve to be seen, you deserve to be loved as you are right now, not by proving how useful you can be to someone because you’re not a machine. You’re not an object. You’re just another human, as valuable as anyone else.

Amen, amen, amen.

For victims of abuse, it’s almost essential to gain ability to stop empathising with our abusers, not only because it’s keeping us trapped in their manipulations, but because we deserve to know that we don’t have to prioritize the feelings of a person who is actively doing harm to us.

Empathy for victims of abuse is almost mandatory, to the point where we’re punished for every moment we’re not displaying extreme and unconditional empathy for the abusers. We can get called out and berated for simply going about our business and not thinking of what the abuser might want of us in the particular second. We get shamed for ‘not knowing better’ and 'failing our role’ if we take a minute to consider our own needs.

When they’re doing their usual play – hurting us, then quickly acting hurt and playing the victim, bringing out their past trauma, crying about how hard they have/had it, how our feelings hurt them, even in the case we don’t fall for it, and refuse to apologize and accept that our feelings are just collateral damage in their personal crusade, we will get attacked immediately for being an emotionless and selfish person. Fail to react empathetic to the abuser’s guilt trip will get us called out for being horrible, for not caring, for being the most vicious demon, the worst person, the most unworthy and ungrateful human being in the world. That kind of thing sticks. We don’t just get over that. It becomes etched in our brains that displaying empathy, even to someone who is walking all over us, is our biggest priority, that showing empathy is the last thing that might protect us against an even bigger outburst, that might help us deserve to not be attacked for our lack of morality. We don’t get to be mad. We don’t get to stand up for ourselves. We have to put up a display of empathy or endure personal attacks that will make us feel like we don’t deserve to live.

To finally be able to cut the empathy and stand up against the abuser, is an act that fights years, maybe decades of brainwashing and conditioning. To not care if the abuser has it bad anymore, means we faced and fought years of trauma, lies, personal attacks, self doubt, self hatred, pain and injustice. Abusers want to take away our ability not to care, not to empathize and not to prioritize them, and seizing that back means seizing ourselves back, existing in a place where our empathy is not mandatory anymore, where we’re not pure compassionate receptacles of trauma anymore. Where empathy isn’t forced and squeezed out of us under the threat of pain. Where our value and personality isn’t dictated by whether we endlessly forgive and accept people who will only continue hurting us and bringing trauma into our life.

It is not a mark of a healthy and normal human being to offer our entire compassion and understanding to a creature who is destroying us in return. If someone proves to be a danger to us, it’s normal to disregard everything except the knowledge that this is a threat, and nothing else to us. To keep away because our well being shouldn’t be put under a fear of a constant threat. We are normal for following our sense of self-preservation and turning away from whatever is damaging us, regardless of how sad or upset this being becomes. We are not to be a collateral damage to someone’s misery or manipulation. Our empathy doesn’t have to be an opening to accept harm. We can save our empathy for those who also feel for us. We’re not bad people if we close up under a threat of abuse, and want to retreat to safety. We’re not evil, cruel or selfish for extending our hearts only to those who also keep ours safe.