You Know... I Had An Experience About Two Months Ago That I Didn't Talk About Publicly, But I've Been

Graffiti in Rockville, Maryland in memory of 23-year old Saudi trans woman Eden Knight.

Eden died after being forcibly detransitioned in Saudi Arabia, after being trafficked from the US by a security contractor named Michael Pocalyko.

Rest in peace Eden

Transphobes will not win

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.

quick dismantle for those who are starting to feel like it’s not worth speaking against narcissistic abuse:

children are being abused by narcissists right now, with no way to find out if there’s no resources being written about it

narcissistic abuse has been found to be so specifically devastating on the human body that even if it’s not physical, it causes long-term physical symptoms (chronic pain, chronic fatigue, inability to sleep regularly, over-active cortisol, over-responsive brain chemicals that give you ptsd symptoms)

there are people organizing forums, writing books, articles, posts, people making videos, checklists and all possible resources for dealing with narcissistic abuse. all of those people are survivors and victims of it. they’re not all making it up. they’re not all doing it for something that doesn’t exist.

dynamics of the narcissistic abuse are so pervasive, a person will usually feel they’re going insane and doubt themselves so hard until they finally find resources on narcissistic abuse, which is going to help them regain their sanity and find sense in what has been happening to them

narcissistic abuse has left millions of people feeling they’re not worthy of attention, care, resources, community, support or trust, and they’re accepting abuse as their normal. we can’t abandon them. we can’t say this is okay and look the other way in order to protect the narcissists.

if you’re worried that speaking out against narcissistic abuse is creating stigma against narcissists, remember that our writings and resources are being spread only among victims and survivors. narcissists are still controlling the mainstream narrative and all articles you look up as a non-survivor will convince you that narcissists are the ‘same as normal people’

for survivors of narcissistic abuse, it’s absolutely vital to avoid future narcissists and to be aware of their tactics. this is not limiting their access to public resources or public people in general, it’s only limiting their success among victims and survivors. ask yourself why would they want access to survivors and victims specifically. why is it so important that to this particular demographic, they look appealing.

narcissists claiming that if we don’t want them to have and abuse children, it’s ‘genocide’, genocide against who? narcissists most often don’t make other narcissists, they’re mostly creating abused kids. so the apparent genocide is against the abused children. they’re accusing us of genocide against ourselves.

narcissists finding abused people taking about abuse and attacking them for ‘smearing their reputation’ is a cover-up and darvo tactics. Only an abuser could turn against an abuse victim to act hurt and police their language instead of feeling rage towards the abuser. Anyone non-abusive would immediately have a problem with a narcissist who did the abuse, not with the victim who speaks out about it.

saying ‘not-all-narcissists’ is still admitting that a lot of them do abuse, and for the sake of their reputation, we have to shut up about it all. shut up. about abusers. to protect reputations. who except an abuser would need that to happen.

other times when they’re claiming no narcissist is abusive, they’re accusing millions of victims to be liars. openly denying experiences of abuse victims only to make themselves look good. we’re going to stand around and allow this?

making one narcissist feel like they don’t belong into safe spaces of victims is not more important than protecting the vulnerable part of the population from narcissistic abuse

abuse victims don’t have to be exposed to anyone who has anything in common with their abuser. we have the right to feel safe at the expense of anyone’s feelings.

Speaking against narcissistic abuse is NOT futile. They’re fighting to shut it off precisely because it’s limiting their access to victims. Every day a victim of narcissistic abuse finds their way to their freedom because there are people who spoke out about it.

I adore this, I adore this so much.

that arm’s gonna get covered in stickers, just u wait

also:

it wasn’t designed w mabel’s artistic genius in mind

Thank you for these. <3

GRAVITY FALLS POST-ENDING HEADCANONS

- Dipper and Wendy swap hats every year

- Soos and Melody eventually have twins that live in Dipper and Mabel’s old room

- McGucket makes the old Northwest mansion into a mecha because he can…and because Soos hooked him on anime

- Ford and Stan visit the kids for Thanksgiving, which is why you see Mabel making Ford a turkey hand in the credits

- Bill is still kicking around somewhere in Stan’s subconscious, but it’s gonna take him a while to pull himself back together, much less be in a position to do any damage

- Since Soos moved into the Shack, Stan and Ford end up rooming with McGucket whenever they go back to Gravity Falls. Some of the weird creatures end up living in there too. It’s a big mansion.

- Stan still has occasional memory gaps, but he remembers the important stuff - anything to do with his family

- Stan pretended not to remember Ford just to annoy him. Ford is annoyed but hugs him anyway.

- Gideon starts sending his thugs after any bullies, not just ones who pick on him.

- Dipper and Mabel’s parents are understandably annoyed about the pig, but they leave it alone when they realize how much the kids have matured over the past few months. 

- (they are in fact, kind of worried about how much the kids have changed over the summer)

- Bill’s statue is still out in the woods. No one wants to go near it.

- …Except Dipper, who came across it the next summer and hangs out there sometimes when he wants to be alone and needs something to complain at that can’t interrupt him.

- (and if Bill ever meets Dipper again he’s going to have a lot to say about his petty human problems)

- Everyone involved in the circle eventually gets a tattoo of their symbol. They can’t exactly explain why, they just end up doing it on their own.

- Gravity Falls’ location? It’s in your heart.

Inktober #24 Silent Hill 3’s Heather and Valtiel

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

Every single time abuse victims gather the courage to speak about their abuse, they’re not doing something simple and easy for them. They’re going against everything they’ve been conditioned and groomed into.

Every abused person has been forced by their abuser into some form of secrecy; maybe they promised, or they swore they wouldn’t tell, or maybe they were intimidated, threatened into silence, or the worst one, blamed and forced to acknowledge the abuse is their fault, making it so much more terrifying to tell someone, because telling then becomes an admission of their own guilt. And abuse universally makes victims feel ashamed. Because to admit they were powerless and cornered and dehumanized, it risks so much ostracizing and judging by others who do not want to acknowledge it’s possible to be in such a situation and to be able to do nothing about it. People will prefer to turn their back to victims, than to accept it can happen to anyone, even them, and that nothing they do could possibly prevent it.

Sometimes, the abuse will be too horrible to talk about, or to even think about. Sometimes, mere thoughts of it force a person into a panic attack, or a fight-or-flight mode. Some trauma can make us black out. Sometimes just thinking about it is unbearable and makes us wish we weren’t alive for it.

To go against all of that, and to trust someone to listen, acknowledge it, take us seriously, and sides with us, it’s a huge risk. We risk every single retribution from the abuser, we risk our own emotional and mental state, we risk venturing into the unknown territory of having someone else know our most painful, shameful and vulnerable moments, it’s a risk not everyone can make.

For a person to side against us, after we’ve done all this work in order to be able to speak, is devastating. For someone to call us liars, to accuse us of ulterior motives, of making it up to hurt the abuser, of wanting attention, of burdening them with this, it’s almost unbearable punishment for speaking out. Even worse, siding with abuser and agreeing they had the right to do this, or that it is our fault, it’s the worst possible scenario. It inflicts incredible damage on our lives. Makes it impossible to speak out again. It’s often a risk of speaking out in horrible desperation, only to be silenced forever.

And sometimes, it doesn’t even matter if we want to speak out, because there’s nobody who could help us. Our friends, acquaintances, peers, authorities, we can tell they will do nothing even if they knew. We can tell they will easily side with the abusers, because we heard them supporting the same rhetoric abusers use to justify themselves. Even if they felt sorry for us, we can tell they’re not going to do anything to help. For some, the knowledge of the abuse would only be a burden we don’t want to inflict.

You are not at fault for staying silent. You are not responsible or guilty of a sin if you never told anyone. You are not responsible for the abuser’s actions. You are not responsible for anything. Chances to speak out were either denied or ridiculously risky and/or hopeless to grant you rescue. Even if you stayed silent because your abuser lied and threatened you, you had no way to know for sure. You couldn’t have risked what little safety you had for the possibility of being hurt even worse. You’ve walked with this on your shoulders for so long, you should get to put it down without risking a thing.

i dropped off my resume at this place at 1:15 and got called for an interview at 1:45 holy dang

A tiny Stan I doodled. Mullet love