just-shower-thoughts:

I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it feels like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anyone else to feel like that

thatwasjustadreamm:

vajeentambourine:

Shout out to people like me who have parents who are loving but are black holes of emotional labor… It took me a long time to realize that it’s okay to have mixed feelings about your parents, about your relationship with them.

Sometimes parents can love you but be somewhat toxic to you and your growth, and that’s a very hard realization to come to if you, like me, grew up extremely close to them.

Sometimes parents can love you genuinely but lack emotional maturity, forcing you to perform disproportionate amounts of emotional labor. Some parents manifest symptoms of their mental illness in ways that are toxic to your mental illness.

Some parents, like mine, try so hard to be good parents but fall back on habits of emotional manipulation because they haven’t processed their own traumas and are modeling behavior they grew up with. That doesn’t make their behavior acceptable, and it’s okay to feel exhausted and hurt when they betray you. You don’t have to forgive every mistake.

I want you to know that it’s okay to protect yourself, to need some space apart from them. The love you have for your parents is still valid, and you are making the right decision.

Placing a safe emotional distance between myself and my parents has been one of the most difficult, heartbreaking processes I’ve ever gone through… it hurts to try to curb the strength of your own natural empathy around people you love. It feels disingenuous to your heart’s natural state.

But I promise you, you are not hard-hearted or ungrateful, and you are not abandoning them. You are making a decision about your own emotional, mental, and spiritual health.

I know what it’s like in that confusing grey area of love mixed with guilt and anxiety, of exhaustion and quasi-manipulation and unreciprocated emotional labor, and I promise you, you are not alone.

Your mixed feelings about your parents are valid.

A million times yes to every single word of this. It’s so hard not to doubt yourself- especially since being ‘parentified’ takes away a significant amount of your sense of self. Parentified kids look like the most mature, capable people - because they’ve been forced to perform/achieve/caretake. But inside there’s a lot of pain over being used in the ways described above. Still working to accept this, because I do love my family - even though it’s a mess. Rising above that mess and living in some sort of peace is 100% up to me.

interviewed:

toecruise:

interviewed:

what do you call a person who has poor hearing?

what???

I SAID WHAT DO YOU CALL A PERSON WHO HAS POOR HEARING

mojavewastelander:

infiniteragequit:

sothisistherapy:

ericfvckingharris:

Growing up in an abusive household is a fucking trip dude……If you’ve never had someone angrily wash a dish at you or fold a sock in your direction then how are you gonna understand why I get nervous when you quietly do the laundry, or why I ask “are you mad at me?” when you set the bag of groceries down too hard? It’s a totally different way of living and it impacts you long after you’ve left the situation.

This is so important.

Abused kids speak a language you can’t learn

I think a lot of people misinterpret this post to mean that folding a sock angrily at you is abusive, and that’s not what it means at all. The fear abused kids feel at this kind of behavior is a conditioned response because we know what comes after. Its about sitting there terrified and waiting for when they will snap.

This is actually a symptom of PTSD, which is more common among child abuse victims than modern veterans