got rekt
Tag: abuse
lapis snortlaughing is the best thing, and daaaamn suddenly the hells of toxic relationship. jasper even whipped out the old “you’re horrible and i’m the only one who knows how horrible you are and can stand you” isolating headfuck, that shit is right out of the domestic violence handbook.
i was also super impressed by the abuse being mutual. often times you don’t see that in media, they always have to have a perfect good partner and a monster partner, instead of two flawed people who are toxic for each other. it’s not very useful to split things black and white, that doesn’t explain why the victims stay together, that sometimes the partner with the conscience feels like they are just as much to blame or deserve to be punished for how they “provoke” the abuse and participate in the headgames. letting the shame and self-blame be acknowledged is really useful, because it gives people in these relationships who, themselves, behave in terrible ways (which is to say, everyone) a chance to say “yes, i did fuck up, and my making mistakes excuse precisely none of what’s happening to me.”
i really appreciate the way lapis enjoyed her power over jasper but also is fully aware of how fucked up and abusive it was, and how jasper saw her weakness against shame and tried to play on her self-loathing to manipulate lapis back into the relationship.
really well done. wish we had more time to develop it, but eh, that’s the medium.
malachite is spuffy grade fucked up. delicious.
It’s ok to have complex feelings about a family member who abused you because you can see how oppression and social conditioning made them this way.
Sometimes feelings about abusers do not fit neatly into “kill them all” vs “forgive but don’t forget” ideologies.
Maybe we will always be having those feelings and processing them every time they come up, and that’s okay. You’re not a fake victim because you empathize with your abuser and your empathy is not evidence that they didn’t hurt you or that you can’t also be angry.
People argued a lot about “separating the art from the artist” when Woody Allen’s molestation of his daughter became impossible to ignore. However, here’s the thing: almost all of Woody Allen’s work is about a thinly guised version of him. A lot of it is about some old weird creep having a sexual relationship with a younger, beautiful woman under a clear imbalance of power. How the hell am I supposed to separate the art from the artist?
I have no desire to see Woody Allen make a movie about a professor entering a relationship with his student. I have no desire to hear R. Kelly sing about sex. It’s disgusting. It’s them describing their loathesome crimes through art.
“jealousy is so disgusting” “anger is so toxic” did u know? these are emotions every human has
I’ve always been a fan of an analogy I heard once. Your emotions are like one of the lights on your car’s dash. When one of them turns on, it means you need to check under the hood and fix them. It’s not bad that the light turned on, per se, and it doesn’t always mean something is broken. But what IS toxic, dangerous, and likely to break something, is when you let that light stay on, pretending it’s normal, until that braking fluid finally fails and you crash into someone, or your engine fails completely.
Feel jealous. Feel anger.
Just don’t let it fester. You need to look inside of yourself, find out why you’re feeling the way you are, and bring yourself to a satisfied, stable state of mind. You can look at philosophy, meditation/introspection, religion, or actual therapy, or at least talking to someone about it. You’ll find you’re much more content and happy when you do something about those feelings, and come to some sort of conclusion or resolution.
That is a wonderful way of looking at it, thankyou. Makes me feel better about myself when I DO feel that way.
I feel like a critical flaw with these arguments though is like….I don’t think most people realize. But a lot of people who spent the majority of their childhood being abused are always. angry.
I’ve discussed this with a few people before and they seem to collaborate my theory but like.
I’m always angry. always.
It’s an undercurrent. it’s not like the side effects are always at the surface. And I’ve taught myself to put it aside, to still be able to have fun and get on with my life.
but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m literally always going to be angry and at any moment I can stop pushing it down and be livid again.
but guess what? that’s not my fault. and I don’t think I’m a toxic person because of it. I can still be a good friend! All it means is that my friends have to understand that if I start talking about something that upsets me I’m likely going to go on a rant because I have so much pressure always built up.
a “normal” person might be able to turn off that dash light, but I feel like people need to understand that abuse victims and people with certain disabilities sometimes CANT.
(X)
ugh 