canadiankazz

stay alive

stay safe

Drink some water

eat something

get back into the things you love

Unclench your jaw

do some self-care

Take a shower or bath

The infuriating part is that people apply the pop-psychology definition of "trauma-bond", but apply the actual psychology judgement of it, as in, "obviously bad, duh, everyone knows that".

In pop psychology, "trauma bonding is when you're bonding with someone over shared trauma or similar past experiences." In actual psychology, "A trauma bond refers to the situation where someone develops strong feelings of sympathy, loyalty, dependance, and attachment towards their abuser."

In pop psychology, "Gaslighting is when someone lies to you, questions you, or disagrees with you over what happened." In actual psychology, "Gaslighting is an abuse tactic where you are manipulated to question your reality, memory, or sanity—not just a disagreement over what happened."

In pop psychology, "Being triggered means that something makes you uncomfortable or annoyed." In actual psychology, "A trigger is something that causes a sudden increase in symptoms—like flashbacks in PTSD or compulsions in OCD. Its not just a source of general discomfort."

In pop psychology, "Intrusive thoughts are random impulses you might want to act on; e.g. wanting to do something unexpected like dye your hair pink or eat cake for dinner." In actual psychology, "Intrusive thoughts and unwanted, involuntary thoughts that go against your real value and desires. You dont want to act on them, and them coming true would be your worst nightmare. They can be very prominent and distressing in disorders like OCD and PTSD."

I volunteer for my local shelter and when the weather's good, we do a free vaccine clinic every Friday. Free distemper, free rabies, cats and dogs. We hand out free food from the pet pantry, we give people leashes and collars, we do whatever we can to keep people's animals at home and healthy. Every animal that can stay home and be fed and be vaccinated is an animal that we can keep out of the shelter.

We get all kinds of folks, sometimes we even get backyard breeders but we don't do any judgment, because we want people to come and get their dogs vaccinated, because one parvo case costs $7000+ and the whole year of Parvo vaccines for hundreds of dogs costs less. It's just harm reduction, everything we do is harm reduction.

So anyway, this one day this woman comes up to the vax clinic and she is high as fuckin' hell, just obliterated fucked up, smoking a joint in line, and she has this TINY pibble puppy with her, maaaaybe four weeks old. This thing is so fuckin tiny and wormy and lethargic, and she's like, "Hey I heard I can get her shots." and we're like, oh fuck this puppy is gonna die. Like straight up, we were all like, fuck that dog is gonna die. So we gave her wormer, we gave the first distemper shot, and I put together a whole care package: wormer to take home, puppy milk replacer, puppy wet food, a leash, a harness, some blankets, toys, we gave her instructions on how to get the puppy eating food, and we told her to come back in 3 weeks for the follow up vaccine. And we were all like, well fuck, that puppy's gonna die, goddamnit, that's so fucked up. But you know, we did our best, and we hoped we'd see her again.

And in three weeks, you guys, she showed up. And she was still high, but like, half-high this time. Smoking a cigartte in line but like, could focus, could ask and answer questions. And she'd taught that tiny puppy how to SIT and had her walking on a leash. We found out that it took her three buses to get to the clinic, and she told us all about how she got the puppy eating right, got her stool solid, she was taking her on walks... The puppy looked so good, you guys. I almost cried, it was so big. Really happy puppy. At the end of the visit, we were like, ok, see you in three more weeks for the next distemper.

So three weeks later, she shows up, and she's sober, and she told us, "You know, I was really fucked up the day I bought that puppy, I wasn't sure I was going to live, and I bought that puppy and she was too young, and I didn't know what I was doing but y'all were so nice to me, and you helped me so much, and I knew that I had to give this puppy the best life I could, so I moved back in with my grandma, and I'm getting clean, and I'm on methadone, and I'm going to rehab next week, and when I get back, I'll come back and visit you guys again."