Fresh and Traumatized

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idk how to do the view more thing so if u got flashbanged i am so sry😭😭😭plz block me

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😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

eh

Learning is part of the process, being a little frustrated is part of the process, and each thing you make is wonderful because you made it exist! It's in the world because of you! It's uniquely you and no one else can replicate it exactly the way you do it.

I think of how we all exist on this earth for a limited amount of time, but the things we make will be left behind and it will touch the lives of people we'll never meet.

My partner's parents went to Italy one year and talked about how there were preserved sketches and unfinished sculptures done by Michelangelo. And I was losing my mind because yeah there's the amazing Sistine Chapel ceiling and the statue of David but his works in progress also exist! To see his process! To imagine that he also felt frustration? joy! to know he made so many WIPS before he eventually made the works hes widely known for.

I keep thinking did he have days when he thought those were crap? Which ones made him realize what he wanted to do in the final pieces. And to me the disconnect between myself and some super famous long gone artist I've never met drops for a bit and I yell THATS A PERSON WHO LIVED! THEY DID CREATIVE THINGS WE STILL DO TODAY

I think about the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave. did they feel happy creating these paintings? did their children watch? copy them? There's so many animals drawn over and over again, were they also doing their own art process that way? Was that a form of practice? Farting around and having fun? 👀

To know the need to express oneself through creative works has lasted for years and years and years is AHHHHHHHH 😭💕💕💕 It has endured! People's creativity has endured. And these days can feel so hopeless but the love to create can still persist despite it all.

Fascists will try and convince us none of it matters or that specific types of art are superior over others. "Let AI do it for you" but it can't do things like you can. It's just a stupid machine made by rich morons who have no souls. Its nature is to steal because their nature is to steal.

And you?

And abusive shit can be a lot of things. It can be a bigoted boss that resents their very presence at work. It can be a romantic partner that speaks only in violence and control. It can be a family member that refuses to acknowledge boundaries and feels entitled to their everything.

Abuse has a multitude of shapes and it takes a lot of courage for someone who is enduring it, to not only acknowledge it for what it is, but to reach out and TELL someone. They might not even be at the stage where they're asking for help, they just want someone to look at their reality, the true reality of it, and acknowledge that... yeah that's abuse.

And if you, yourself, have never experienced abuse - first of all, I am so glad, genuinely, that you've been blessed with such good luck - you might find the next steps in your friend's process to be deeply upsetting. Annoying, even. Because you say "yes, that's abuse" and they reply "okay" and then immediately go back to it. Even after you helpfully point out that they need to get the fuck out of there.

They keep going back.

And you're going to look at their actions and the conversations you've had and you're going to come to the conclusion that they're enabling the abuse. That they are actively participating in it, by not getting out as soon as they recognized the abuse for what it was.

And you're going to look at your friend and feel the urge to tell them that they need to stop "tolerating" it, because they have agency and they're clearly partaking in the abuse, by consistently coming back. Your friend might have even shared with you that the abusive situation has forced them to act in ways that, to your discerning eye, sound abusive themselves, which combined with their refusal to drop everything and go, means you might end up tempted to label your friend as a toxic person inherently, and decide to end the friendship entirely.

I am here looking at you in the eye to tell you all of that is the devil talking.

All of it.

While I understand the temptation to give "agency back" to survivors of abuse, no victim of abuse is ever complicit/enabling/participant in their abuse. Because they didn't choose to be abused. They didn't sign up for it. They didn't cause it. If you're wondering, we have a name for this urge people keep failing to repress, no matter how unsightly it is whenever they express it: blaming the victim.

So don't do that.

But also don't just tell a victim of abuse that they should leave and then be exasperated when they don't do so immediately. Do you understand what it means to leave? I suspect you don't.

Go check out HealingByTheNumebrs on Youtube, here on a very convenient playlist for you. Dr. Ruth chronicles HER own escape out of a 10 year abusive marriage. She talks about WHY she decides to leave, and then goes day by day on a 7 month journey to put together a reenactment of her escape plan.

It should help you understand why "just leave!" is not helpful. It's not even advice. It's borderline cruel, even. Are YOU offering to help them along with your loud proclamations that they should go? Are you opening your home to them, to have a place to GO? Are you offering to pay for costs?

Telling someone to leave is easy, particularly when you're not offering to help someone figure out how.

So please. PLEASE. If someone confides in you, do not listen to the devil, listen to your friend. Actually listen to them. And the be a fucking friend, and honor the trust placed in you by not being a fucking repugnant shitstain that betrays that trust immediately and starts parroting the devil's bullshit.

uhmmmmm zerox but theyre in my most favorite singers album cover :P i couldve tried blurring x out like the girl but i didnt wanna risk it😭😭😭

nevertheless this was fun to make ~.~

anyone also likes the weeknd hmu plz

colored ver here