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I'm Sorry - Gator Days

Neglected children will sometimes reassure adults that they’re fine, even when they’re in a horrible state. Neglected kids will feel guilty if anyone is worried about them because they don’t want to be a bother, feel badly for taking anyone’s attention, and don’t want to cause any concern. If as a kid you reassured and convinced people that you’re okay, when you were anything but, know that it’s normal for abused kids to do that. Concern and worry are often things we get guilt tripped for, we’re told we’re “bad” for making anyone worry, “selfish” for causing any kind of distress.

This doesn’t mean anyone is allowed to use this to change the narrative into ‘but you said you were okay’ when you finally admit you were not. Pain and struggle is visible on a child, regardless of how good an actor the child is, for anyone who bothers to pay attention. You pretending you were fine does not absolve anyone of hurting or neglecting you. A child always left to their own devices, reassuring others and insisting they don’t need any attention ever, is obviously not fine. Healthy children thrive on attention and always try to get more.

The more you know!

💓

Happiness Will Come To You.

Recognizing Abuse Masterlist

Signs that you’re living in abuse:

Behavioral patterns of living in abuse

Was I abused? Checklist

Not knowing you are a victim

Signs your family is abusive

Making excuses for your abusive parents

Experience of living in secrecy

What they taught you was abuse

Emotional experiences of living in abuse

Shame and guilt: how abused children feel

What makes parents abusers (actions)

Have I been manipulated into believing abuse was my fault? Checklist

Am I being held hostage by abusers? Checklist

You are not allowed to mention the past

Why you still love abusive parents

Parental behaviour that isn’t normal

Shit parents aren’t supposed to say to you

Experience of “not belonging anywhere”

Red flags for abusive parents

Healthy vs Abusive Chores

Was my childhood abusive or just had some bad parts?

Rules always change (unpredictable environment is abusive)

Breakdown of abusive parent’s behaviour:

“This is my house” rule

Start living in the real life!

Why all the children aren’t abused equally in an abusive home

Common abuser hypocrisies

Do your parents want you to be happy or look happy?

Why do they try to convince you that you’re worthless

Why do they pretend you’re a burden? Controlling behaviour

Why your abusers are not good people

Abusive parents are keeping you in false hope they’ll change

Are your parents preventing you from succeeding?

Abusive parents pretending “it wasn’t that bad”

Double Bind (why every choice you make ends wrong)

Incorporating trauma in raising children

Abusers will not allow you to call them out on abuse

Signs your parents are narcissistic:

Stuff delusional narcissists say

Shit narcissistis parents say

Tactics of narcissistic abuse

Recognizing emotional immaturity of narcissistic parents

Examples of narcissistic behaviours

Being punished for growing up by narcissistic parents

What children of narcissists go thru

Signs you’ve been thru sexual abuse:

CSA (Childhood Sexual Abuse) Symptoms

Signs you might have endured CSA

Was I sexually abused by adults as a child? Checklist

Signs of abusive friendship/relationship:

How to tell if a friend is not a friend

Am I in an abusive relationship/friendship? Checklist

Manufacturing insecurities

Red flags for abusers

Have I been thru social abuse? Checklist

You can recognize abusers by how they make you feel

How abusive childhood teaches you to stay in abusive relationships

Recognizing abusive friendship

Signs you’re struggling with trauma

Trauma processing information

Experiences of traumatized children

Signs you’re recovering from long term abuse

Things abuse survivors think/say

Thoughts of victims of child abuse

Your brain on trauma

How long term childhood abuse develops into complex trauma (comic)

Ups and downs of trauma

If you experienced trauma in childhood or had a rough childhood, dude listen to me. Offer yourself play. You were deprived of it.

Keep bubbles in the house, blow bubbles in the yard, blow them in your room, get a coloring book that doesn’t have to be an adult one with mandalas, watch cartoons, laugh at stupid things, dress up as a superhero for Halloween, wear a Santa hat on Christmas and big light up snowflake earrings, lay down on the floor, lay down in the grass, eat eggos for dinner sometimes. It’s not stupid. You’re not childish. You’re giving your inner child what they had taken from them. They deserve it.

Mostly I reblog so I can look at things again

ALL this.

I question the character of adults who are jealous of children.

I'm noticing that adults are often very offended when they see a child who has something they themselves didn't have in their childhood. I've had someone randomly start ranting about how their own grandchildren have 'too much toys', and how they don't appreciate any of it. They went on to explain how they, as a child, only had one toy, and they had to play with that one alone. They're also upset that children can now use phones, which also wasn't an option in their own childhood.

This is concerning to me, because while busy noticing all the things that children have, which are toys and phones, people don't tend to notice the things we had that are no longer available to the new generations. Planet free of pollution, free of climate change, adults got to experience that. Economy that isn't in this bad of a state, availability of jobs, education being worth something, financial safety, probability of owning a home. All of this has critically declined and turned into unstable, unreliable and difficult to manage situation for children, to the point where there's no clear path to a safe future anymore, for anyone. Current children have to invent jobs and find a way to produce a safe future without relying on an existing path, something that was available for most of the population in the past.

And the availability of phones and toys is not necessarily a luxury; back then nobody had a phone, or a mountain of toys, so it would be unusual and privileged for just one child to have it. But when everyone has that, it would be unusual and almost humiliating not to have it. The prices of these had reduced, they're more available and easy to get. The phones connected to the internet will ensure that the child will be exposed to a lot of information every day, and they'll have to find a way to deal with all that, it can become overwhelming and damage their attention span and emotional stability, if they're constantly exposed to distressing or disturbing information, which often finds its way to kids.

What will it mean for their life, if they had toys and phones as kids, but later on, they don't have a safe job? They can't hope to have a home of their own? They are not at freedom to financially plan their futures, their families, they have to depend on their own parents or relatives to get by? What will it feel like when they can't count on the climate and safe and reliable food sources? What when they're suffocated by the financial demands of just staying alive and fed? What if they don't have anyone to help financially? What if they're rendered mentally ill by the stress and perils happening in the world, all of it so close to them via constant overload of pain and suffering?

Having toys and phones is nothing compared to having an experience of a safe, stable, predictable life, on a planet with a normal, stable climate. We failed to secure this to our children. We have no business being jealous that they now have a phone.