Just Fuck Me Up, Brain

The worst thing you can be is demanding. Everyone will hate you. Be invisible. Ask for nothing.

No, actually the worst thing you can be is visibly upset and asking for help when we hurt you. Shut Up. Act Normal. You're Fine.

You have no right to express your feelings & if you ever do, you will be humiliated, shamed, and shunned. Get self control. You're pathetic if you can't shut down and shove all your feelings where we don't have to see.

You are not special and nothing important will ever happen to you. Any kind of throwing a fuss is you being dramatic/crazy. We will institutionalize you if you don't quiet down.

You will never survive without us. Not only you owe us for your life but you are helpless without us and always will be. Slight us and die.

You have to deserve to survive. Nobody wants you to even exist so earn your keep. Either in labour or letting us violate your boundaries or both. You exist to serve.

Nobody cares what you think. You can't trust your thoughts and shouldn't verbalize any of them.

There is something so selfish, spoiled, bad and fundamentally evil inside you, you have to be treated with cruelty continuously or you would become a terrible monster.

Any slight in your personality or behaviour is a reason to hurt you and it is always your fault. If you didn't want this you would have been a different person.

You are beyond help and not worth paying attention to. You are so defective you are lucky we're feeding you/giving you a roof over your head. Nobody else will be as kind.

You are intrinsically stupid and don't understand anything, and never will. Not even worth explaining things to you.

You always lack empathy and never think enough of how we are feeling/what we want. If you cared you would do what was wanted before we said anything.

We can do anything to you because we gave you life. Nothing is off limits.

Trajectory of your life is only there to make our lives easier. Anything you do that inconvenices us is an act of evil that needs to be destroyed and sabotaged.

Other people think the worst of you and find you a burden and a nuisance. Don't expect them to help or accept you. There is no place for you.

You being stubborn about something is a crime worth destroying you over.

We have the right to your unconditional love and forgiveness no matter what we do. If you try to withdraw this we will make you feel like the worst person to ever exist.

You get to make zero choices in a relationship. The second you want something that doesn't please the other person, you risk abandonment and/or revenge. This is how it should be.

You only ever get to analyze your own behaviour and try to do better. If you try to criticize anyone else, you'll be told to look at yourself all over again. You're not perfect.

You are only allowed the lowest, most degrading thoughts about yourself. If you develop any confidence we'll make you feel stupid for ever believing anything positive of yourself.

It's okay that you live your life in a suicidal state if it pleases us. Just never speak up on that because its inconvenient and we will ignore/taunt you if you say something.

I'm so lucky to be able to have a roof over my head. Some people don't have that much.

I'm lucky my family feeds me, and I have to make sure to eat everything I'm given. Some children don't get to eat.

Imagine how worse things could be for me if my parent was more like (insert an extremely violent criminal you've heard about )

If my parents knew what I was thinking right now they'd kill me (I had angry thoughts)

I need to remember my parents had way worse childhood than me and I'm having it easy so it's normal for them to be resentful and angry at me all the time

They don't mean all the things they say to me, it just gets out in anger because they don't think it's fair for me to have an easier life than they did

I'm sure my parents would act differently if they just understood. They always just think it's not serious when I say anything. It's my fault for joking around sometimes.

I'm sure everyone has it just as bad as me but we don't talk about it.

I wonder how everyone is keeping it together so well if things are this bad for everyone?

I must be the weakest most pathetic out of everyone. I can't have anyone know.

My situation isn't that bad because bad things are not happening all the time. Right now nobody is doing anything to me. So I need to stop feeling like this.

What is wrong with me that I can't feel normal?

If only I got kidnapped/tortured/trafficked. Then my feelings would be explained. Plus I could scream out loud which I really want to do but it would bother people so I don't.

Is it okay for me to exist? Would things be better for everyone if I was gone?

If only I never existed. There's no way out of this now.

I'm selfish for wanting to die because it would upset my parents if they found me dead. They would be so mad I didn't think about them when doing that. I can't be that insensitive.

I just need to get over myself. I'm not that important. It doesn't matter. There's nothing special about me. I'm just being dramatic and making things up.

you fail to recognize not everyone has trauma that impacts their ability to perform activities of daily living - even right down to basic things like eating. and not everyone has trauma dominate their entire life, with no escape: not even escape from within their own mind.

we can recognize that we live in a society that has doled out trauma to most people without punching down on the most vulnerable by telling them they should be able to do x, y, z (ex: work, make friends, get sober, have hobbies, cook, etc) "like everyone else."

Somewhere in my relationships I learned that things cannot be unsaid and that any words spoken will become ammo that is saved up and returned without context or expiration. I was taught to stay silent because spoken words are dangerous.

Slowly but surely an affection style built entirely out of self-erasure became my central pillar.

Unlearning that has not been easy. Learning to endure the discomfort of existing with intention, sharing without apology, taking up space, being selfish, having needs, being vulnerable, requesting support...

I'm so lucky for the partners I have for giving me space to unlearn. For being forgiving when I slip. When I hide. When I return to old scripts.

I got denied for disability after waiting 2 ½ years for a response and the wording in the letter pissed me off. So I wrote a poem about it.

Image id in alt text

Poem transcript under the cut

when i was a kid, i would have to tiptoe around his anger issues often, sometimes running quietly past his work table until he got his own place completely separate from our family, locked away for days. every so often he would start screaming in the car and trying to hit me or my brother for talking too loud while my mom attempted to calm him down as he swerved on the road. and now he, smiling, helps me with car insurance.

It might take time. More than has already passed, but it will get better.

than has already passed, but

it will get better.