So why then, do they expect you to follow their orders, or else? Why do they demand you to be present when it’s convenient for them, to give them your compassion and understanding and to work as hard as you can to make things easier on them? Why are they against you moving away and living on your own? Why are they not giving you freedom to go off and have your own life, instead of “burdening” theirs?

It’s because all of the things they make you feel are merely a manipulations to control you. They lead you on to think that if you listen, behave, obey, offer everything a person can offer to them, do whatever you’re told, and act a role they desire you to - that their opinion of you will change, you will deserve to be a part of the family, you will become accepted. It’s all a lie. They never planned to do anything but control you, and they will say any kind of disgusting lie to keep controlling you. You were never a burden, you were never a bad person, and your presence wasn’t a bother even to them, they needed you, required you to be present and obedient so they would have all they want.

If you were such a bother they would have made sure that you live free of them, they would never require you to do anything for them, they would never imply that you have some kind of obligations or debts to them, you don’t want bothersome people to owe you anything. They would want freedom from you, just as you want freedom from them, but it’s never what they want, is it? They want you to be trapped in thinking that by trying hard, by sacrificing your own value and importance and needs and wants, you could deserve to be included in the family. But this concept is fake, you cannot deserve family, you cannot work to be a part of something, you either are or you are not. If you are not automatically a part of the family, you can never be, it’s impossible no matter what kind of benefit you offer to abusive people, for them to actually provide you with something they never had in the first place, love and acceptance.

This post-trauma effect isn’t irrational or exaggerating, if you feel this it’s because this is how horrible the trauma really was, but your were not able to feel it in the moment for several reasons; one of them is that it was unsafe to feel those things in front of abusers, they have already taught you that you will be punished for displaying trauma symptoms in front of them. To be additionally hurt in the middle of such pain would be unsurvivable. The other is that it would have killed you to feel all that as a kid. Keeping all that repressed to feel later is your body’s strategy of survival, you can only feel it now because you’re still alive in order to do it.

Nothing. You get it fixed, or you don’t. Whatevs.

You know what actually happens when you are depressed or sick or on your period and don’t cook dinner?

Nothing. You still get to eat something, nobody scolds you, it doesn’t have any real bearing on your future success, and you don’t get soft shunned for a week by your family.

You know what actually happens when you break stuff, forget stuff, get sick, fall asleep, are rude, miss a flight, don’t know how to do XYZ thing on fixing cars or canning food or whatever, lose things, get lost because you can’t read a map and forgot to charge your phone, buy the wrong groceries, plant the wrong plants, not make your bed, make your bed wrong, jump on your bed, sleep on your bed, eat crackers in your bed, have emotions literally anywhere?

Nothing.

Nothing happens.

No one is mad.

No one can hurt you, and if they do there are laws saying they can’t and that it’s an actual crime with legal consequences.

All there are are outcomes and different paths and different problems and different situations and you just bumble your way forward into dealing with those and that’s it. That’s the whole thing. It’s not the wrong choice, having problems isn’t indicative of your inherent badness or inadequacy or lack of applying yourself. It’s just life, and it’s happening to literally everyone.

I’m not even kidding.

You just do stuff and nothing bad happens. Walk around existing? Nothing bad will happen. Wild.

The bad thing that can happen is that your own head can pick up the slack where cruel or unkind parents (or others) left off. All those punishments you don't receive can still play out in your mind just as potently as though they'd actually happened.

I don't say this as discouragement, but it's not wise to discount the fact that damage was done, and that it takes time and a lot of consistent safety to change how that damage wired your head to work. It doesn't matter that you logically accept that nothing external is going to punish you or hurt you for having an off day--your brain is still going to react to what for so long were sure danger signs.

And where this tends to go horribly wrong is that it's very tempting to self-flagellate--that is, to further punish yourself--and take it as a sign of personal frailty for having that internal, emotional response to danger that isn't there anymore: "What the fuck is wrong with me? I know nothing is going to happen; why am I acting and feeling like this? This is so embarrassing. I need to grow up and get over it yesterday!"

Expecting punishment can become a self-fulfilling prophecy if you expect logical acceptance of your external safety to be enough; if you expect your mind to flip a switch and be done with all those messy feelings.

i will be the challenge in my parent’s testimony. the thing that shook their faith but that they overcame in the end. they will talk about how my transness, my sexuality, and my abandoning the faith was a mountain they had to climb. a bump in the road successfully overcome with god’s help.

i will be sold to bright-eyed christians who just want to find comfort in their religion, and they will never hear my side of the story. they won’t hear about how i cried myself to sleep and begged god to take my queerness away. they won’t hear how i made myself sick knowing that my parent’s unconditional love would become less unconditional when they found out i no longer believed in their god. they would never know how i laid in bed and dreamed about being adopted by a different couple, one that didn’t raise me to hate myself. they would never know how i choked back tears when my closest friends talked about how disgusting being trans was. they won’t know that i have never loved myself and more than when i accepted the reality of my gender and sexuality. they won’t know that i have never loved the world and people around me than when i left christianity. they won’t know that in all my years of life, i have never been happier than now, because now i’m free.

and even if they did believe me (because after all, there is no good without christianity!), they wouldn’t care. because i’m not a real person. i’m a character in a fairy tale being spoon fed to them. i’m the tragic victim that was misguided by the greatest antagonist in history. but my parents resisted the villain, and maintained their loyalty all along. they watched me be dragged away by the sin of the world but nevertheless, they persisted.

No. I am the goat that fought my way out of the fence and ran off through the woods to climb the fuckin mountains. I don't want or need no shepherd to bring me back. I'm a mountain goat now. I'm not just the black sheep of the family, I'm not the innocent lamb that needs a savior. I'm the goatlike devil that everyone warns you about, I've shed my wool and grown out my horns.