An angel kissing on a sinner

THE BEAR, 02.06 + Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson

online they're back to making fun of self-harm scars. isn't that funny. we have dropped the silver pretense of empathy and are walking around without any shred of humanity.

are you still shouting? how can anybody love you, then, siren. error signal. your voice so quiet and desperate. nobody is going to help you, stop begging. how can anybody actually look down at you without squashing you flat. oh, darling. you once bit into the back of your hand to stop from crying out, and discovered that it felt too dramatic for repeating.

people like you aren't supposed to cry, because you are too much. you have never meant to, but you take the air out of a room just by walking in. other people can take up room like a sunbeam. you blurt out all your wickedness in oilslicks, everyone can feel it. you slosh yourself over their hands and demand their flinch. you are a bone stuck in the throat.

be more beautiful, more perfect. if you can earn it, they won't abhor you. they might even tolerate you, if you turn the right way and never stand up straight.

but love? her life is a silver fish, a cat paw. your life is a long, thin, impossible desire - angry like a blade. your life is a crack in the floortile. you cannot bring your rotted fruit heart into the church of her hands. you will ruin her. you will overtake everything good for her.

or worse - you will have to beg her look at me. and that moment of desperation will ruin you forever. completely.

🤝 besties

what you mean is that you've been good. you were a good team player. you would have never considered yourself perfectionist - those are people more popular, prettier, more successful - but you carry any flaw like a secret in you, terrified someone will desert you for the simple reality of your personhood.

if you were good you could be loved. you could be loved if you were selfless and thoughtful and caring. if you bent over for every person, if you went above-and-beyond, it would absolve you of who you actually were. deep down, how horrible that you had needs. that you had boundaries, that you had desires. you learned young that you cannot afford to cut people out of your life - you would have nothing left. it is better to live in the service of others, to supplicate. to worship. you weren't exceptional, you had to make up for it in some way. to prove to others you were worthy.

if they need you, it's the same thing as loving you. if you are always-there, always-listening, always-friendly, you are filling a role. you have a purpose. you are living correctly.

villain era, you repeat. you mean: yesterday you finally told a man no. for hours afterwards, you couldn't control your heartbeat. you mean: you've been saying positive affirmations on repeat, trying to teach yourself any new thing about how self care is necessary. you mean: three weeks ago, due to a scheduling conflict, you finally told a coworker that no, you couldn't do them a "quick favor". you have felt bad about that ever since. sure, it would have made you work late and it would have been extra stress - but you feel bad about it nevertheless.

you tell your therapist you have been leaning into evil. she asks what that means. when you tell her: sometimes i prioritize my own needs, she doesn't find it funny. she looks at you a long time.

"and that's evil?" she clarifies.

Blythe Baird, from If My Body Could Speak; “Concerns from a hot-boxed jeep”