bwah

my favorite girlypop go spinny :3

Like, a lot of us who had traumatic childhoods had our emotional responses beaten out of us. Don't smile, don't raise your voice, don't cry, boys don't do that, don't bounce your knee, why are you doing that it makes you look weird, don't look away, stop doing that, don't make any noises, and stop moving your hands like that.

Gradually, you become a statue. Immaculate in your formlessness, the world unable to touch you. It's awful.

And, it's not like that goes away when you're out of the situation. Learning to emote again is work. Real work. And it's very hard to justify. On some level, hiding yourself so totally is a strength. It's not 'learning how to put on a mask', it's becoming one with the mask. It's useful, or at least you'll notice when it's useful. To emote again in the ways you lost means fighting through years of trauma.

But. You have to understand. Not emoting feels bad.

Have you ever felt really, really sad but been unable to cry? Denied of tears, you want to gouge your eyes out. The catharsis is gone. Your sadness feels less real for it. Inevitably, you seek other ways to reify your emotions.

It's like this for every emotion that was removed from you. All of them not just an absence but a void. A vacuum that demands more and more. Unstable equilibrium. You have to do something about it but the natural outlet is hidden behind the scariest thing in the world.

So, you fantasize. Wings, horns, tails, ears. You'd coil around her to express your desire. Your wings would flap out and show your pride or bend inward hiding you to show your embarrassment. Your horns would be sensitive the way none of your body could be. Your tail would wag or droop or lift. Here, we see a new language to express ourselves, one untainted by the past. Escapism.

but why? because no adult in my life saw children as people. i was thing, dragged along to show off how good my parents were. anything different needed to be hid. i was forced to attend school where i was bullied, othered, talked down to, harassed, or ignored otherwise. i had no choices, no way of standing up for myself, because it punished if i did. and i was punished over and over again.

i was hit, i was verbally abused for two decades by my immediate and extended family, and i was sexually abused by my older brother before i was allowed to understand what was happening.

children desperately need rights. they need the power to say no and have that be backed up by a system that will support them. i didnt want to kill myself, i wanted to escape my family and there was no other option available to me. i isolated myself for years because of the abuse i faced and many more never made it past their suicide attempts.

children need rights so that the rampant and plain-as-day abuse they face can have a chance of being stopped. when children have somewhere they can go, away from their families and abusers where they have a guaranteed bed to rest in, when children have the knowledge they need to identify when they're being abused, when children arent forced into labor by parents, guardians, or companies, when children arent forced to say yes to adults, when children have the freedom to express themselves, when children have the freedom to choose who they are and transition,

WHEN CHILDREN CAN SAY "NO"