Today, I see the ones who were abandoned, neglected, & abused by the very men who were supposed to protect, love & be there for them.
I see the ones with a lasting place in their hearts that never seems to be filled. I see the ones who joke about “daddy issues” with friends only to cry on the floor once they are alone. I see the ones who don’t know who to or how to ask for help, the ones who go it alone because there seems to be no other way. I see the ones who are so hurt that they can only think to lash out, and the ones who lash inward instead. I SEE you.
I see you, and you are not alone, and I PROMISE you that not all people will hurt you the way he did. I promise you that even though Father’s Day is incredibly painful, life as whole will feel better someday. And in the meantime, you are not alone. I am here. I promise.
If I talk real slowly If I try real hard To make my point dear, That you have my heart. Here I go I’ll tell you, what you already know. Here I go. I’ll tell you, what you already know. If you love me, with all of your heart. If you love me, I’ll make you a star in my universe. you’ll never have to go to work. you’ll spend everyday, shining your light my way. If I talk real slowly If I hold your hand If you look real closely my love, you might understand. Here I go I’ll tell you, what you already know. Here I go. I’ll tell you, what you already know. If you love me, with all that you are. If you love me I’ll make you a star in my universe you’ll never have to go to work. you’ll spend everyday, shining your light my way. Here I go I’ll tell you, what you already know. Here I go. I’ll tell you, what you already know. If you love me, with all of your heart. If you love me, I’ll make you a star in my universe. you’ll never have to go to work. you’ll spend everyday, shining your light my way.
#DisabilityDayOfMourning - Today we remember our disability kin killed by their parents/family/guardians because they’re seen as a “burden” or to “release them”. That’s murder & too often there’s no justice. But I would also like to ask people to be aware of caregiver-neglect. And yes, caregiver-neglect often means parents & loved ones too. This is what nearly killed me & I didn’t say anything because I felt trapped & didn’t see a way out. Until my sister gave me one. But if she hadn’t noticed I needed help, I never would have said anything. I thought living with my mom* was my only choice, that she was the only person willing to take care of me. & that I had to live with neglect & abuse as it slowly killed me because I had no resources to get out & didn’t know where to turn.
If you see a disabled person in a bad situation, talk to them, offer to help them find resources. (Please don’t just call protective services - that’s stepping on their autonomy & could make the situation worse. Only report it if the disabled person is unable to communicate their wishes to you through some form of communication) - Otherwise you can talk to us, ask us what we need, help us get it. Show us there are options, that we don’t have to live with an abuser & be neglected to death.
Because sometimes they kill us outright, but other times it’s slow & torturous - while we too often listen to people around us say what a saint our caregiver is for carrying the burden of us & it makes us feel like there is no one we can turn to, to say “I think I’m dying. I think they’re killing me.”
Remember us today, help us every day.
-
*the fact that my mom was mentally & physically ill herself doesn’t change that I suffered & nearly died. It might not have been 100% her fault, but I still suffer the c-ptsd from it everyday.
Oh hell no, not some kid from middle school trying to argue w me why our 5th grade teacher was so great, when he was an abusive ass who put his hands on a student, encouraged kids to Moo at the fat girl & call the boy who played w Barbies a Sissy…only then to reveal this dude was friends w teacher & his fam. Teacher was fatphobic, ableist, racist, classist, elitist & homophobic (irony, dude praising him is gay & I hate to tell him but Mr S would damn him for it, Mr S was *rabidly* religious). I’m fired up. He ended his comment w “I’m not trying to argue, just adding my view ” which really means he wants to have the last word. Instead I responded, “Duuude, no. Just…no. I’m not gonna argue w you, bc it sounds like you had a personal relationship w him & his family & don’t wanna hear it, but pls don’t diminish the damage he did to me or my brother from having him as a teacher. That guy messed us up back in the day.” I was engaged w a friend about some of our worst teacher experiences & he just felt the need to come to Mr S defense. Read the room. It’s hard to hear that someone you have a good memory of maybe being not as good as you thought, but tell it to someone who wants to hear it & not the person talking about how it fucked them up. So, I probably lost that FB follower, but eh, he doesn’t have kids so wasn’t buying any of my future books anyways ♀️ (what? What do you have FB for if not to sell books? I enjoy some other aspects of it, but is def why I got a FB. That & pics of niblings. Is why I rarely post on politics & never post on religion. I thought Sucky-Teachers was a safe subject, Lol). Someday I should write up the ableism from this teacher. It’s an interesting study on how being over-invested in someone’s disability can actually be ableism.
Addendum… After I responded w “pls don’t diminish the damage my bro & I suffered from this teacher” the dude responded back w passive aggression “thanks for shaming me for stating my opinion and experience. I certainly didn’t do that to you. I’m surprised.” Also apparently I bullied him in 2nd grade which I guess negates my right to complain about bullies? & dude was bullied in middle school too (I remember, he got it p bad) but idk why he was pointing that out unless he thinks it means he has the right to defend a bully bc of it? (The bully in question being a teacher, a grown man in position of power bullying literal children, mind you) Pièce de résistance was his final line tho, “But we make due with what hand we are dealt and make the best of it.” What kinda minimizing shit is that? Yeah, I made do w my hand, buddy. But am also allowed to talk about upsetting shit from my childhood on my own page without having to tolerate people coming to this shit teacher’s defense. Fuck him. I was happy to reconnect w him but if hes gonna talk over my pain, he can fuck off. Think I’ll delete the post, maybe unfriend him, be done w it.
#DisabilityDayOfMourning - Today we remember our disability kin killed by their parents/family/guardians because they’re seen as a “burden” or to “release them”. That’s murder & too often there’s no justice. But I would also like to ask people to be aware of caregiver-neglect. And yes, caregiver-neglect often means parents & loved ones too. This is what nearly killed me & I didn’t say anything because I felt trapped & didn’t see a way out. Until my sister gave me one. But if she hadn’t noticed I needed help, I never would have said anything. I thought living with my mom* was my only choice, that she was the only person willing to take care of me. & that I had to live with neglect & abuse as it slowly killed me because I had no resources to get out & didn’t know where to turn.
If you see a disabled person in a bad situation, talk to them, offer to help them find resources. (Please don’t just call protective services - that’s stepping on their autonomy & could make the situation worse. Only report it if the disabled person is unable to communicate their wishes to you through some form of communication) - Otherwise you can talk to us, ask us what we need, help us get it. Show us there are options, that we don’t have to live with an abuser & be neglected to death.
Because sometimes they kill us outright, but other times it’s slow & torturous - while we too often listen to people around us say what a saint our caregiver is for carrying the burden of us & it makes us feel like there is no one we can turn to, to say “I think I’m dying. I think they’re killing me.”
Remember us today, help us every day.
-
*the fact that my mom was mentally & physically ill herself doesn’t change that I suffered & nearly died. It might not have been 100% her fault, but I still suffer the c-ptsd from it everyday.
a lot of people seem to forget, or just don’t realize, that there is a difference between someone doing something that causes you harm and someone actively harming you, and sometimes it is actually on you to remove yourself from that situation rather than on the person to modify their behaviour
this is an especially important distinction among traumatized people, because sometimes you will be hurt by people who didn’t actually do anything wrong and it is not your place to treat them like they did something maliciously
Seriously, sleep is not for the weak though. Sleep is very important and it should be a priority if possible. Naps are good and important. Sleep, when you have mental health issues, is often a difficult thing, but don’t fear sleep. Sleep doesn’t make you weak, it helps your brain be strong and it helps you regulate your emotions and process the events around you better.
Best of luck sleeping to anyone reading this! I hope you sleep well tonight! May good dreams come your way!
traumatic memories, especially traumatic memories from when you were a child, are notoriously difficult to access in their entirety. there are a lot of reasons for this- dissociation, injury, and memory deteriorating over time to name a few- and this can present a challenging question to survivors: how do i know i’m not lying?
people who are faking trauma or mental illness in general know they’re faking it. if you didn’t wake up one day and plan out what a fake traumatic memory you were going to have, and all the triggers you wanted to have, then you’re not faking.
processing trauma memories is difficult and frightening and confusing, but you are not a liar or a faker.
First I want to say I hope you’re doing well, and this blog is quite helpful (thank you for running it)!
Second, I saw you put a post covering nightmares in relation to ptsd and c-ptsd, and I was wondering if I could ask a further question on that? Firstly, what’s the difference between nightmares and night terrors? Secondly, would a dream still be categorized if it had nightmare stuff in it (gore or other upsetting things) but you don’t get super stressed over it?
I ask this because I was curious if having a ton of nightmares over years could desensitize someone to them, and therefore make what could otherwise be categorized as nightmares only dreams (if that makes sense?)
There’s no pressure to answer, and please take care of yourself! I hope life is treating you well and to anyone else who may (or may not) read this. Thanks
Thank you! I’m glad you’re finding it helpful. :)
Question 1:
Here’s what I found on the difference:
Nightmares are coherent and vividly realistic dreams that become increasingly disturbing as they progress and result in waking from sleep. Nightmares commonly involve impending danger or distressing themes and provoke emotions such as fear, embarrassment or anxiety upon waking.
Night terrors are episodes of screaming and agitated movement such as flailing or thrashing, accompanied by intense fear. They typically last between seconds and a few minutes and begin whilst still asleep.
A person who experiences a night terror may be mobile, leading to episodes of sleepwalking, and provoke aggressive behavior if restrained. Upon waking, the person may be confused, disoriented unable to recall the night terror episode when fully awake. (source)
Question 2:
So my opinion is that you can have nightmares and not feel (or not realize you feel) distressed by them. There’s a phenomenon called alexithymia, which is an inability to “feel your feelings” or to recognize and put a name to your feelings. It’s very common in situations of complex trauma beginning in childhood, partly because if you don’t have someone in your life teaching you how to identify and deal with your emotions, you tend to not be very good at it, and partly because traumatized children find that their feelings are too overwhelming, so they stuff them down and learn to ignore them rather than dealing with them.
For example, I have had a habit since childhood of bouncing my knee when I’m sitting. For YEARS, people would say to me, “Oh, you’re bouncing your leg. Are you anxious?” And I’d go, “No, no, I’m just naturally fidgety.” It was only once I started to learn to recognize when I was feeling anxious that I realized: when I bounce my knee, it’s because I’m anxious! Those people were right after all! I was anxious, and my body knew it and responded accordingly, but I didn’t consciously realize I was feeling anxious.
I think the same thing can happen with nightmares. I wake up a lot in the middle of the night, and I also tend to remember my dreams really well. So I’d wake up from dreams at like 2 am and lie awake for two hours, and then go back to sleep. In the morning I’d start telling somebody about the dream I had, and they’d go O_O because the story I was telling them was so creepy or disturbing. And I’d say, “But it wasn’t a nightmare, because it didn’t scare me.” Only in the last couple of years have I realized that I wake up in the middle of the night because those ARE nightmares and my heart rate goes up and my adrenaline starts pumping, and it wakes me up. My body responds to the anxiety that my conscious mind isn’t feeling.
So I don’t have any scientific proof for this answer, but that’s my belief, based on my personal experiences: alexithymia can lead to people experiencing nightmares, and their bodies even responding to the fear of the nightmare, while they don’t FEEL like it’s a nightmare because they aren’t consciously scared.
By the way, if you think you might be having difficulties with alexithymia, I recommend the book Being in My Body by Toni Rahman. It’s about how alexithymia and such problems develop and how to learn to feel your body and your feelings more.
