DO YOU CRITICIZE OR DO YOU CREATE?

Cut to junior year of college. I took Classical Greek as part of my degree, and I was feeling like I had a leg up over my classmates, whose Greek handwriting looked like kindergarten chicken scratch, while mine was smooth and quick. I turned in my first assignment feeling pretty damn proud of myself.

About three assignments later, my professor pulled me aside with the goofiest look on his face…

“I appreciate the effort, but…”

You remember that phase I think all little girls go through in middle school/junior high? Where we have swirly tails on our G’s or our Y’s get all swoopy, or we dot all our I’s with little hearts?

Yeah…

chinese:

korean:

russian:

greek:

Handwritten Yiddish:

I wish this were fake

“men just kill themselves more because they don’t give a shit about anyone and have no emotions but women? us girls? we care” ASDFGHJKL

Over 70% of suicides are male victims? Quick, let’s make this into a feminist talking point and a women’s issue and demonize dead men for struggling with suicidal thoughts and mental illnesses. #StayWoke

hyper fixates on your appearance, constantly makes you incredibly self-aware of how you look and what others are thinking of you

compares you to other people, to show you what you should be more like (or look more like), making you feel like you’re the only worthless person

tries to control and micromanage your appearance, threatens you with missing out this and that if you don’t look up to her standards

uses you as emotional and psychological support

tells you how you are the only one who understands and loves her, forcing you to bear the burden of living as her “support system”

constantly makes you feel guilty for everything that is happening to her, makes you feel as if you owe her to make the world a bearable place for her

shares traumatic stories from her past that you are too young to understand and react to, expects unconditional emotional support and therapy from you even when you are a child

if the dad is abusive too, accuses you of being “just like him” or tells you that you remind her of him when she lashes out on you

also if father or another person is abusing you, she stands on their side or just pretends not to see or notice it’s going on, later tells you it’s your fault

silences your opinions with “you don’t know anything”

shows exaggerated concern for you for purpose of controlling where you go and what you do, makes you feel obliged to avoid certain places or situations so “she wouldn’t worry” but it extends to stuff you would usually be able to do safely, like hanging out with friends or traveling or having a social life

forces you to center her well being and her happiness more than your own and if you do anything for your own good, you will be called out for not thinking of her first

doesn’t feel responsible for providing you with decent meals or wardrobe, doesn’t notice when you’re hungry or lacking in basic resources, but lashes out at you if anyone else notices for “embarrassing her”

or alternatively, is crazy controlling over when you’re allowed to eat, what you’re allowed to eat, and what resources you are allowed to have

pushes you into interests and activities she wants you to have, disregards and criticizes everything you do that she doesn’t like

her behavior towards you changes in public, she becomes must more concerned over how other people perceive her relationship to you, is generally nicer if other people are listening

feigns concern towards you in front of others, in private keeps telling you how you’ll never make anything out of yourself

tries very hard to keep you at home forever if possible, refuses to teach you basic life skills, denies you resources you need to learn how to make something on your own, convinces you that you are in fact, helpless and incapable of survival without her, insists that you be dependent on her

breaks into your privacy, demands sensitive information about your relationships, conversations and thoughts, everything you do not feel comfortable about telling her because you know she’ll use it against you

accuses you of being a failure as a child, for being “heartless” and not caring about her at all, reminds you of everything she’s been thru only to raise you, talks as if she sacrificed herself for you

has periods where she doesn’t seem to even notice you, then in other times is completely obsessed with you and wont let you out of her sight

acts aggressive at times but always with pretense that her violence doesn’t count because she’s not physically able to seriously injure you, disregards all psychological and mental wounds of being assaulted and hurt by your own mother

acts like you’re an extension of her and have no existence or life of your own, refuses to accept any individuality and tries to prevent you from growing up and becoming your own person

makes you feel too guilty to say no to her, uses every social convention to make you feel as if you’re using and discarding your poor mother when all you want is to create a single boundary

refuses to acknowledge any of your successes but brings up your failures as a proof that nothing will ever become of you