I must feel this pain, to heal this pain.

i love you coffee i love you chai i love you boba i love you fruit juice i love you green tea i love you slushie i love you milkshake i love you lemonade

If you lived with abusive parents, it meant that the rules changed for you any moment. You could have been praised for something most of the time, then suddenly one day it brings a punishment instead. You could have been allowed to do certain things until one day you got tortured for doing it, and afterwards you couldn’t even know if it was alright to ever do it again. Some things were only allowed when parents were in forgiving mood, sometimes things you absolutely had to do, you knew you’d be punished if anyone saw you doing it, or if they found out. 

You never knew what the consequences would be. You could be wildly overpunished for something as simple as failing to close a door, saying the wrong word, having a certain face expression. You would get blamed and punished for things you didn’t do. You would get punished for someone’s bad mood. You would get punished for existing next to someone who was angry and wanted a punching bag. 

There was no consistency in your life, you had to live tiptoeing and hoping you would somehow do the right thing and avoid torture, the rules would change and twist and turn against you no matter what you would do, you developed a sixth sense to figure out when someone was irritated or upset, and you would still end up hurt and abused. 

And you got told this is normal, this is just how life is, everyone has it like this. You don’t doubt it or see it as abuse, it’s just your every day, you can’t imagine living a life where you’re safe, where you don’t have to expect thousand horrible things to happen if you make a tiny mistake that you initially had no idea would even be a mistake.

Now think about that and tell me where your anxiety came from. What living like this continually would do to a person. Because once you lived like this, this mindset doesn’t go away, it’s what you’ve learned to live with, what you’ve been forced to live with if you didn’t want to be in pain every second of your life. How would you not panic and over analyze your every word? How would you not try to predict just what kind of horror could come from most mundane and common action? How would you not at least try to brace yourself for the next torture someone might have ready for you? Your senses are not wrong, they’re trained to do this, they’re experienced in trying to help you survive life in abuse. 

Tough kids are the ones who were punished for being vulnerable and hurt. Nothing forces a kid to hide their pain like the promise of humiliation and pain, and awareness that no compassion will be shown for their pain. Abusive parents even go step further and insist their kids have to be “tough”, they have to endure screaming and insults, they have to stay impassive and stoic thru fear and pain and never demand to be paid attention to or comforted. This is not how we treat other human beings in society, that’s how we treat prisoners and criminals, those we don’t care about, those we condemned to a life of hidden suffering.

Sometimes children will have to go thru listening how bad and selfish they would turn out if they weren’t “tough”, names like wimp, coward, and sissy will be thrown around, as if those describe any single person except abusers. Children are forced to grow scared of their own vulnerability and pain, feeling as if they’re at fault if they show any kind of weakness or pain, as if that’s the problem, and not grown adults failing to give them any sort of care or nurturing. And children are grown like this for no other reason than for adults to be able to lash out at them and abuse them for personal satisfaction. Yelling “you’re tough, you can take it!” while abusing a child, as if they’re doing a favour to the kid.

Don’t go lashing out at tough kids, thinking this wont affect them. They’ve already been tortured enough. They’ve already hidden their pain too many times. They’re already piling up a mountain of things they’ve repressed and dissociated from because it was too much for a kid to handle. You’re not doing them a favour adding onto that pain. That kid will break one day and realize nobody ever cared for them, and instead all people in their life used their grooming to feel justified in hurting them. No kid needs to be that tough. No kid needs to be that strong. Children need to be safe. Children need to be around people who don’t require them to show impassive expression in the face of pain. Children should get to have full hearts of knowing they’re loved, not pain in their chest they have to hide, in fear of being called weak. Give the tough kids a chance to be children, or leave them alone.

it’s time to shut down the lie that children who don’t grow up being hit, humiliated, and scared into obedience will grow up into spoiled, entitled, selfish monsters. there is zero truth to that. children grown in a healthy and nurturing environment will get a chance to grow up healthy. children who are raised by monsters who try to pretend that abuse is for the child’s sake and that the child would become a monster if not abused will be stripped of their health and will be denied an actual start in life and will be forced to fight for survival. I’ve had enough of abusers pretending they’re helping the child while they’re just taking and taking more and more away from them and leaving them permanently traumatized and emotionally injured. Don’t let them get away with it.

refusing to do as your parent says is not a provocation for them to abuse you.

standing up to your parent and telling them they’re wrong is not a provocation for abuse.

doing things in your own time and not on the exact timeline your parent wants you to is not a provocation for abuse.

asking for what you want or need and sticking up for yourself is not an invitation for abuse.

reacting to insults and getting angry and demanding them to be taken back is not a provocation for abuse.

refusing to participate in something that hurts you, even if your parents want you to participate, is not an invitation for them to force you.

defending yourself when attacked, fighting back, getting away from them, protecting yourself, hiding and getting out of reach is not a provocation for them to hurt you worse, to trap your movements, to hold you down, to lock you up, to hit you harder, to force you to accept the pain.

accepting parent’s challenges of “just you dare” and “do it and see what happens” isn’t a provocation on the child’s side, it’s actual provocation from the parent who is trying to find an excuse to abuse the child.

being mentally ill is not an invitation for them to force you to act normal and hide your symptoms.

keeping personal things private and wanting some things to stay private is not an invitation for privacy breach.

refusing to forgive your parents for what they’ve done to you is not an invitation for them to do worse.

refusing to be eternally grateful to your parents for feeding/clothing/sheltering you is not an provocation for them to threaten, insult, humiliate or blackmail you

calling your parents out when they’re harmful, cruel, neglectful, sadistic, toxic and abusive isn’t a provocation for them to show you how they could do worse.

holding your parents responsible for their actions is not a provocation for them to lash out at you and demand endless gratitude

letting your parents know when they’ve hurt you is not an attempt to hurt them.

having an opinion that differs from parent’s opinion isn’t an invitation for them to insult your knowledge or humiliate you.

being your own person doesn’t give them right to shut you down and force you into a role of what they want you to be.

You should be able to do every single of these things without your parents hurting you. If your parents consider this behaviour a “provocation”, and respond with abuse, they’re abusive. If they tell you it’s your fault because you provoked them or asked for it, they’re manipulating and brainwashing you to take responsibility for their abuse.

Dismantling the Lies of Abusive Parents Masterlist

Resources

Physical abuse

Blatant Lies

Psychological abuse

If this hits home, also read Recognizing Abuse Masterlist

— Sylvia Plath

self care is so damn difficult when you… don’t… care… about your own self

https://www.instagram.com/p/CReG0HGpun0

I wanna drink this liquid

someone: everything happens for a reason!

me, traumatised: what was the reason? what was the reason?????

“A newborn pony prancing in the sun” 

(via)

Sue Zhao