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.
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
FANTASTIC.
Saving people, hunting things
I had this in mind for happening sometime after Stanford manages to somehow un-goldify himself.
Sorry, Eight Ball but not really
Subtle signs of long-term psychological abuse:
Intrusive belief that you have to do everything perfectly and flawlessly or you are no good, deep drop in self-esteem upon making a smallest mistake or being criticized, feeling that your value is tied completely to how well you can finish tasks, perfectionism
Low self-esteem, feeling you’re less smart, less capable, less valuable or less lovable than the people around you; struggling to feel like you’re an equal part of something, worry that people don’t find your worth keeping around, always worrying about being left behind
Over-taking responsibility for everything, bending backwards to make things go well for everyone, feeling guilty and ashamed if something goes wrong that wasn’t in your control, always taking tasks other people wouldn’t do, doing anything to feel useful
Making excuses for other people when they hurt you, always being ready to ‘look at it from their side’ and assume they had a good reason to hurt you, or didn’t mean it, or didn’t realize they were doing it, or were ‘just lashing out’ and doing it because of their own pain – but you’d never make those excuses for yourself, or forgive yourself if you did that
Double standards for yourself and others, you feel it’s okay for others to be selfish, unreasonable, short-tempered, assholes, hurtful, impatient, self-centered, but it’s not okay for you to be any of that, judging yourself way more harshly than others
Constant fear of abandonment from your friends and loved ones, fear that you won’t be able to go on if you’re rejected and abandoned by them, over-pleasing them in fear they’ll leave
Feeling there’s something deeply wrong about you, always looking for a way to blame yourself for anything that went wrong, feeling cursed, impostor syndrome
Inclination to hide as much as possible about yourself, only showing an image to people you socialize with, fear that if anyone knew the ‘real you’ they would be repulsed and grossed out
Shame for feeling pain, shame for crying, feeling weak and despicable for being vulnerable and hurt, urge to hide and isolate whenever you’re in pain, feeling others would hate you for it
Constant pressure to prove yourself, never feeling like you’re 'good enough’, rarely or never feeling happy or proud of yourself, every day is a battle to show that you’re still worth something
Feeling you have to be always open to scrutiny and criticism, even if it comes from people who don’t know you and don’t wish you well
Arranging your life only to please others, acting a role of support or a servant in other people’s lives, feeling selfish if you try to think of what would be best for you
Worrying that every nice thing anyone has said about you was out of politeness, and every horrible thing someone said about you is secretly true; inability to hold a consistent self image that isn’t affected by everyone’s view of you, imagining that others are thinking the worst of you
Spiraling into feelings of not wanting to exist anymore, wishing you weren’t born, not being able to find anything good about yourself, seeing yourself as a stack of flaws and past mistakes
D i n e r
If you ever need to justify traumatizing someone by making them feel bad for you and your sad tragic past just know that this person would be way happier without you in their life and using your past trauma to bring more trauma to others lives doesn’t make you the tragic hero you think you are, it’s unoriginal and boring and they will eventually see thru you and be sickened by it and you will not be forgiven
When abusive parents hurt you, they're not 'doing it for your own good' or 'disciplining you', they're singling you out and making you a target. Because they're not doing it to all other kids, they're not doing it to their guests, friends, coworkers, bosses, neighbours, it doesn't even count if all of those people make one of the same mistakes you do. It's allowed for them. It's okay if anyone else does it. It's okay if other people break things, or refuse to be controlled, or speak up, or demand something, or act selfish, or act childish, or don't cater endlessly, or don't guess their moods, or don't act submissive, it's okay for everyone else! Just not for you!
What exactly is that teaching you?
That you're different. That the brutal and torturous rules exist only for you. That you are the only one who deserves no allowances, no forgiveness, no gentleness, no tolerance, no nuance, no love. And you are the only one! Everyone else can get those things and do what they want, but you will get tortured for it, you'll get tortured even for things you didn't do, because these two people have singled you out and deserved that you're so rotten you deserve worse treatment than any other person alive. And those people are your parents, they made you.
It teaches you injustice, it teaches you to put yourself in a different category than anyone else in the world and to assume you must be so intrinsically different that you won't ever find community, you won't ever find somebody to be on your side or similar to you, because you are the only one who could ever deserve this kind of hatred. It separates you from humanity and makes you feel like you don't belong, like you don't have a home here, it makes you abandoned by everyone because nobody is stating anything different about you. With their silence, dismissal and neglect, everyone is passively agreeing that this is what you deserve. That it doesn't matter to them if you live in pain and despair because you're too different, too otherworldly for them to care about.
No child has deserved to feel like that. Nobody is supposed to be pushed into that pit of despair, injustice and pain, alone, with no visible way out. With nothing they can do to redeem themselves, to find a way to see themselves as human after all that's been done to them. This is not a pit that somebody can easily crawl out of, this is something that can follow you all your life.
All children deserve better than this. Never defend abusive parents when they do this to a child. If you don't want a child to believe themselves to be a monster, don't ignore when this is happening and don't act like it's none of anybody's business. It's all of our business to make sure no kid thinks this lowly of themselves, not even if their parents decide they should. Parents who do this to children should be charged with torture, isolation and psychological devastation of a human being. All children are human. And no child deserves that.
Is there something you planned to do before you got trapped in the endless tumblr scroll?
Are you yelling at yourself to get up and do the thing, but you can’t, because you’re trapped in the endless tumblr scroll?
Consider this your save point.
Put tumblr down, stand up, stretch, and go do the thing you planned to do. Future you will be incredibly grateful.
Abused kid things:
having scars on your body you can’t remember how you got them
gaping holes in memory
feeling distortion in your limbs, your body doesn’t feel yours
always feeling terrified of being called out for a mistake
worrying that you are A BOTHER to everyone at all times
guilt for wanting attention
depriving yourself of attention to cope with guilt and thinking it will “toughen you up”
guilt for receiving attention
feeling uncomfortable whenever things are about you
always feeling seconds from being targeted for someone’s anger
being overly accommodating and still feeling it’s not enough and you will PAY FOR NOT DOING MORE
feeling you’re going insane
trying to blame your own symptoms on yourself
trying to shame yourself just like everyone else has shamed you
feeling life would be better if only you weren’t the way you are
craving for something horribble to happen to you just so you could stop anticipating it
fantasies of abuse + obligatory guilt for having fantasies of abuse
self doubt over weather you actually deserved or wanted to be abused
trying to prove to yourself that you didn’t
not knowing how to prove that to anyone else
trying to soothe yourself by explaining your symptoms away and telling yourself your fears are not real
wondering why you stayed alive this far