This looks like an aesthetic blog but really isn't

So glad

Rey and Ben

Got married

And lived happily ever after

I’m angry that when I finally put the pieces together that yes this was abuse, nobody believed me.

I’m angry that when I told my parents everything, gave them every bit of evidence I had, they still sent my sisters to that school, knowing the people there will lash out at them when I go public.

I’m angry that when I told a friend everything, she locked me out of her life and shamed me into silence.

I’m tired of older adults ignoring me because apparently the twenty year age gap that is physically impossible to close makes my opinions and feelings invalid.

I am angry that social services left us in that house even after they saw what it was like inside. Even after they saw the piles if moldy dishes, the floor piled with trash. After they heard that a single parent with no job had 7 children. After my sister called the police because my mum took an axe to her door.

I am angry that when we were all huddled into one room, hiding from an abuser, we were urged by our father (over the phone) not to call the police. But I am even more angry that if we had they wouldn’t have listened.

I am angry that they tore my out of the arms of the one person who was trying to protect me, as I screamed and cried. And when I expressed fear about my mum entering the room the school Chaplin said “either she is coming in or i am calling the police”. I am angry that when she grabbed a tissue to stop the glob of snot from falling from my face they said “see, your mum loves your, no one else would do that for you” when I knew she was just protecting their carpets.

I am angry that there are 2 little kids still living in that hell. That no one will save them. That I can’t save them, because I’m just a kid too.

I am angry that at 16 instead of planing my future in accordance to how it will be best for me, I am planning what I can do to be able to take in one of those children.

I’m angry at my school, for confronting me about what was going on at home, because I ‘looked a little different’. I had an unironed shirt on. As usual. Maybe greasy hair because I forgot to have a bath. As usual.

I’m angry at my former social worker, who has suggested and maybe even tried to get me to see my dad again, even though I had made it obvious I don’t want to see him, or hear him, or even step n e a r him

I am angry that they were shocked and angry when me and my brother left.

I’m angry he thinks it’s okay to scream, yell, threaten, belittle, because at the end of the day he provides with money

I’m angry at him being angry

I’m angry that my brother is the same, and that our relationship is non-existent for the damage my father has done to him

I’M ANGRY BECAUSE MY PARENTS ARE HOMOPHOBIC AND TRANSPHOBIC.

I’M ANGRY BECAUSE FOR EVEN THE SMALLEST MISTAKE I FEEL LIKE I CAN’T SAY IT TO THEM OR ELSE I MIGHT GET SERIOUSLY HURT (LIKE HAPPENED BEFORE.)

I angry my Nana for telling me I was too young to understand what I saw. I was 22. She was married to a alcoholic for many years, and I thought if any of my relatives would understand she would. (Poppop has been sober for as long as I can remember for some good news in all of this.)

I am angry with my sister for saying she was not going to take sides, and then siding with him. I am scared that her boyfriend might be emotionally abusive towards her.

I am angry with my sibling for siding with him, even knowing he was a homophobe and a transphobe, and for making up easily seen though lies about my mom because they always have to be seen as the victim, and for being a chronic liar. I am scared my father used brainwashing techniques on them, including isolating them. Even if they suddenly realized their mistake I don’t think I would feel safe being alone around them, as if they don’t like you they will make up lies about you, saying you hurt them. They have done this since they were young.

I am angry with my brother for originally helping my mom and I and then siding with my dad when my mom wouldn’t let him just be on the computer all day after school and asked him to take care of the chores he had had for years. I’m scared that my dad had been whispering in his ear, and manipulating him, as my dad can be very charismatic.

I’m angry with my dad for continuing to come into the house he left and taking whatever he wanted. He came back and took the mop. How petty could you be. I angry with him for scaring me so badly that I thought he would hurt or kill me. I think he might have some genuine mental disorders, possibly Narcissistic personality disorder, and/or something related to being an child of an alcoholic, but he sees going to a therapist as being weak, especially for males. He would never see one.

I’m angry that when I told a cop I was scared that I was scared my dad was going to kill me, she dismissed me, telling me that was for civil court.

I’m angry with myself for not recognizing that I was being abused until he started blatantly started doing the same to my mom. As I said he is very charismatic and until then very subtle. But considering I had faked being naked whenever he came upstairs to me and my sister’s rooms, because I knew he wouldn’t enter my room then. If I couldn’t fake it or he said he would wait, he would scold me for having a dirty room if it wasn’t showroom level clean. I am still unraveling my room cleaning trauma.

I’m pissed that he beat my mom so badly and their fights were so frequent that at seven years old I almost ran away from home. If it wasn’t winter, I’m certain I would’ve gone further than the parking lot.

I’m pissed that he had a child with that 18 year old he tried kidnapping. She filed a restraining order on him and went into hiding. He hid the child for almost two years before I ever found out I had a younger brother. He was tossed between here and Missouri to my dad’s mother for the first six years of his life. Maybe he still is. I haven’t been able to see him for the last three. My dad has told me directly that he tells my brother that I hate him. I have emails of my dad threatening me, insulting me, attempting to guilt and manipulate me. Nobody does anything.

Enraged doesn’t begin to describe how I feel towards the worthless, pathetic family court system in this fucking hellhole of a country. If this post isn’t an indication that something is broken then I don’t know what fucking is.

I am so, so sorry. For everyone who responded to this post and everyone who will and everyone who has a story to tell but kept quiet. I see you, I hear you. Never ever forget that there are people who care about you. If some random stranger on the Internet can promise you with my life that I care about you, then I am not the only one.

I’m angry that my parents and ex friends have caused my sense of self worth to drop so low that I don’t even feel like I deserve to be alive sometimes.

I’m angry that my family knows what my parents are like and do nothing to help.

I’m angry because so many things still stand in the way of getting out of here.

I’m so upset every time I look at my baby cousin, because I know there’s countless other kids just like him who don’t have the loving moms he has. Because who could look at a little kid and decide to abuse them?

[ID in alt text.]

A friend of mine posted this and tagged my old instagram account, asking me to share it. I figured sharing it here where I actually have a following, would be far better.

Please remember that just because the government is giving into pressure and greed, that doesn’t mean that any of this is getting any better, in a lot of ways it’s getting worse. And even if you yourself aren’t being as heavily affected anymore, there are people and communities that are.

The Navajo Reservation Relief Project

PPE masks for the reservations

The Water Project

Sibling rivalry is often a trite story of one sibling hating the other out of jealousy. On the surface, the Zuko and Azula may look that way. They have no problem blasting fire and lightning at each other and both of their parents had a favorite. But there’s so much more to it. 

First of all, I would argue that in spite of many near-fatal encounters, they don’t necessarily hate each other. It’s far more complicated than that. How they view each other is closely tied to how they view themselves.

For most of Zuko’s life, Azula is the standard he’s held to. She’s ambitious, ruthless, and a prodigy. No matter what he does, he can’t earn their father’s approval like she can. And she rubs it in his face constantly. When Azula is cruel to Zuko, Ozai affirms that she’s not wrong to do so. Zuko rarely argues with her because he’s been conditioned to believe she’s right. Zuko has internalized the blame for how his father treats him rather than project it onto Azula, and accepts how she treats him as normal. He has plenty of bitter feeling toward her, but none quite as clear as hate. 

Azula’s view of Zuko is even more convoluted. The first time we see Azula, she’s smiling because their father is about to burn him. The next time they meet, she berates him for being a failure of a son. It looks like she enjoys watching him suffer. 

But when Zuko helps “kill” the Avatar in Ba Sing Se, we get to see them in a new context. In the rare moments that they aren’t pitted against each other by the ever looming presence of their father… they actually get along fine.

Every time Azula appeared happy to see Zuko suffering, it was at the hands of their father. It wasn’t just that Ozai hurt Zuko, it what that Ozai hurt Zuko and not her. Every time Ozai insulted or injured her brother, it cemented Azula’s position as the favorite child. And she had to stay the favorite child because she’s seen what would happen to her if she wasn’t. Deep down, she knows just how conditional her father’s positive regard is. When Ozai leaves her in the Fire Nation while invading the Earth Kingdom, the first words out of her mouth are “You can’t treat me like Zuko”. Being better than Zuko is part of her identity.

When Zuko defects from the Fire Nation and begins to succeed without meeting, or even trying to meet, the standards set by their father, it throws her priorities into doubt. In her mind, Zuko is supposed to fail. But she isn’t truly unnerved until she’s betrayed by Mai and Ty Li. 

She is incapable of understanding why Mai would chose Zuko, and this drags to the surface her inability to understand why her mother preferred Zuko. She believed her mother loved Zuko and not her. Now Mai, her closest friend, loves Zuko and not her.

This conflicts with her entire view of the world. She sees the worth of a person as equal to their quantifiable skills and accomplishments. She has been admired, respected, and feared, but as far as Azula believes, no one has ever loved her. She was a prodigy who did everything right, while Zuko was the family screw up. Yet people loved him and not her.

For years, being better than Zuko was how Azula measured herself. Ozai said Zuko was lucky to be born. That he was worthless, weak, disrespectful, and both his children believed him. When Zuko left, he finally saw that Ozai was wrong about him. When Zuko returns during Sozin’s comet, Azula too is forced to see that her perception is wrong. 

Zuko has become the embodiment of everything she lacks.  She thought he was weak, but he’s not afraid enough to fight her fairly as an equal. She thought he was dishonorable, but really he was independent enough to break away from their father’s control. She thought he was worthless, but he’s found people who care about him in spite of his flaws. 

Azula isn’t just trying to kill him, but everything he represents. And when she can’t, she breaks. Zuko is still standing. She has nothing left.

Word of God (Bryke) confirmed that at the end of the Agni Kai, Zuko felt pity rather than hate for his sister. This continues into the comics as he genuinely tries to help her. He knows that while she may not have been overtly abused like he was, she was raised in the same web of lies, agendas, and violence.  

Their past left them both unable to trust people. Azula controlled everyone around her with fear. Zuko shut other people out and tried to do everything on his own. It isn’t until Zuko has left his old life behind that he slowly begins to let people in.