one of the more valuable things I’ve learned in life as a survivor of a mentally unstable parent is that it is likely that no one has thought through it as much as you have.
no, your friend probably has not noticed they cut you off four times in this conversation.
no, your brother didn’t realize his music was that loud while you were studying.
no, your bff or S.O. doesn’t remember that you’re on a tight deadline right now.
no, no one else is paying attention to the four power dynamics at play in your friend group right now.
a habit of abused kids, especially kids with unstable parents, is the tendency to notice every little detail. We magnify small nuances into major things, largely because small nuances quickly became breaking points for parents. Managing moods, reading the room, perceiving danger in the order of words, the shift of body weight….it’s all a natural outgrowth of trying to manage unstable parents from a young age.
Here’s the thing: most people don’t do that. I’m not saying everyone else is oblivious, I’m saying the over analysis of minor nuances is a habit of abuse.
I have a rule: I do not respond to subtext. This includes guilt tripping, silent treatments, passive aggressive behavior, etc. I see it. I notice it. I even sometimes have to analyze it and take a deep breath and CHOOSE not to respond. Because whether it’s really there or just me over-reading things that actually don’t mean anything, the habit of lending credence to the part of me that sees danger in the wrong shift of body weight…that’s toxic for me. And dangerous to my relationships.
The best thing I ever did for myself and my relationships was insist upon frank communication and a categorical denial of subtext. For some people this is a moral stance. For survivors of mentally unstable parents this is a requirement of recovery.
okay hold on i struggle with all of this but i do not have anything close to a mentally unstable parent, does this have to do with more nature rather than nurture in my case or are there other factors at play that i should try to find?
This post is describing hypervigilance (and heightened reactions to minor things), a symptom of many disorders (specially panic or anxiety disorders), through the lens of PTSD from abuse.
What this post doesn’t go into much detail about is that this analysis of people’s behaviors comes with the feeling that you’re doing something wrong and you will be punished for it by that person, because that’s what you were raised to know. Every fluctuation in someone’s behavior indicates the possibility of punishment, specially violent punishment, because abusers (in this case abusive parents) flip at the drop of a hat, and learning to read minor fluctuations in their behavior could very well be the difference between life and death.
It’s not normal to fear for your safety at the smallest change in people’s behavior. If that’s normal for you, you may have a disorder that causes hypervigilance.
lolita fashion (NOT to be confused with loli/lolita cp) is so cute I just wish it were named something else
lmao then call it something else because there’s a reason it’s called lolita and they aren’t at all using it because of cute fashion.
The name Lolita has nothing to do with pedophillia. It was chosen by Japanese designers in the 70’s because it sounded old fashion and European so it fit the style. Due to a language barrier they did not know what connotations it had outside of Japan
The Lolita fashion community is very anti pedophillia, please do not try to say that we are fetishists for using the terminology our community has used since the 70s it is not our fault
Lolita fashion was intended to be intentionally childish, but not because it would be sexual to pedophiles. The original lolita fashion movement was a symbol of rebellion, of girls reclaiming their sexuality from a society that told them to dress formally at all times to find a husband.
These girls created fashion based around a little girl’s idea of fancy. It wasn’t good looking to men, but the women who wore it loved it, and that was the entire point.
Lolita fashion is basically the Flapper movement of Japan (which, for those who don’t know, was also a movement of young women defying traditional gender roles by dressing in ways they found fun instead of in ways that were deemed appropriate).
here’s a picture of a baby cedar waxwing begging for food from a robin. neither of these species are nest parasites, so it’s not possible the cedar waxwing was ‘adopted’. this is essentially the bird version of tapping a random person on the shoulder at the grocery store and going “MOM”
I love that the robin’s body language is basically WHAT THE FUCK WHOSE KID IS THIS
Robin is bathing which make’s it even funnier. More like the equivalent of a strange kid barging in while you’re taking a shower and demanding you make them mac n cheese right now
