have you ever met someone and grow attached to them and think “it’s gonna hurt real bad when they leave”
hey i agree that this is a Big Mood but this is not a healthy thought to have about the people you care about. if you spend your time worrying about when they’re going to ditch you, it will poison your relationship and end up hurting them and yourself really badly. try to make the choice to not give into those self-defeating thoughts. they are not based in reality, but in trauma.
Tag: thanks dad
Also, here’s a very important thing: a lot of abusive people will not show their abusive side at all in front of non-victims. Perhaps your friend claims her mother is emotionally abusive, but when you meet her mother, the woman is very sweet and generous and makes for great conversation and even treats you guys to ice cream or something.
Abusive people are alarmingly good at coming across as perfectly good people when they’re not alone with their victims,. They can flip like a switch between being scary and being amiable. Some might even go the extra mile to turn people against you, making it seem like you’re just being selfish and they’re not at fault. The two-faced act may not always be intentional, but that doesn’t make it any less damaging. In fact, it can make things worse because people may not believe you and you may not get the support you need.
So, if someone tells you that their parent/significant other/etc is emotionally abusive, and your first thought is “But they were so nice when I met them!”, this is probably what’s happening. Please don’t dismiss them just because you may have had a positive experience with someone that makes their life hell when you’re not looking. Listen to them.
hahahah HAHAHAHHAHAA HAHAHAAAAAAAAAA
toomanyfandomsforonetobemyurl:
i swear to god, men raising their voice is the most terrifying thing in the whole world. they dont understand, like its an immediate panic response, game over
I actually had no idea women found this so scary
my downstairs neighbors fight on a regular basis, and every time he starts yelling i’m a little afraid he’s going to kill her. i have no reason to think this except that he is a man and he is angry
My math teacher has a loud voice and a temper and he scares the living shit out of me almost everyday. He’s made me and other kids cry more than once and he and his teacher buddies make a joke out of terrifying students.
this was women in general? i knew my gf didn’t like it but I was unaware if this affected most women
Yes, it does
As a woman, I had no idea it effected other women like this. I was too afraid to even talk about it. I thought I was weak. Thanks for bringing attention to this.
My dad thinks it’s funny that I used to cry when he raised his voice. I freak out whenever some one does. Once my director did, and I started crying I couldn’t stop. I’m glad to see I’m not alone…
This is so important– seeing how common this is– and I also want you all to know that this is not normal. It isn’t something instinctively ingrained into women, to be afraid of men. There is no natural state of men being a threat that women constantly have to be afraid of. This is cultural. So many women and girls here have a mutual understanding of this feeling, and I think it really shows an unsettling truth about our society, particularly about how men are raised to act and how so many women have this defensive reaction gradually develop. It’s so important that these people have their voices heard, because it teaches us about problems that we just can’t deny the existence of any longer.
I’m glad I’m not the only one
My fellow men, pay attention. I didn’t realize how scary this could be until one of my exes explained it to me, and it’s heartbreaking.
Also, when we move too much during an argument, or lean forward, it’s scary, and I never knew. I was even a little insulted at first, because surely she didn’t think I would hurt her. But see, that doesn’t matter. It wasn’t a sign that she mistrusted me specifically; it’s a conditioned response. (Although if you keep doing it once you realize it scares her, she SHOULDN’T trust you.)
Not every woman has been physically harmed by a man she trusted, but every woman KNOWS a woman who has.
I used to be horrible about this, because I didn’t realize how intimidating it was. I didn’t understand why the woman I was with clammed up or tried to tell me what she thought I wanted to hear, and I only got angrier, and acted even more like an asshole. It was wrong. It was abusive. It didn’t matter if I INTENDED it that way; it was still emotionally abusive. And it was inexcusable.
I get that when passions are high, and when you’re frustrated, it’s a natural tendency to let your voice get louder, to shout and gesture and lean forward. But you can train yourself to do better. You can train yourself to keep more of an even tone, to refrain from large and fast gestures, to not lean into her personal space. I did. I’m not perfect at it yet, but goddamn it, I WILL be.
Don’t tell me it’s too hard, that you just can’t do it, or that you “shouldn’t have to.” I’m 53 years old and just now getting the hang of it, and if this old dog can learn something new, so can you.
Note to guys: It really, REALLY doesn’t matter if you’re thinking, “but I would never…”
History is littered with the bodies of women who believed a man “would never.” This includes women killed by men who honestly, deeply, truly believed they “would never”… right up until she said that one thing or moved in just that way and he just got so mad, just that once, and pushed her or punched her or slashed her or shot her… just once, y’know, to shut her up, or because she was flinching and didn’t she know that HE’S NOT LIKE THAT and I’LL TEACH HER TO BE AFRAID OF ME…
We are trained, from infancy, that Men With Loud Voices are a source of pain from which we cannot escape, and attempts to escape may result in more pain. And as soon as we’re old enough to comprehend a world broader than our immediate circle, a world that extends into the past and will run into the future, we realize that there is no way, no way at all, to tell which men “would never” and which men “would never… except if.”
We live or die on that “if.” And any man who doesn’t like facing that hyper-vigilance can work on fixing OTHER MEN, not women’s fear.
The reaction shouldn’t be “not all men are like that;” it should be “no woman should have to live in fear.”
It’s telling that so many people will hear a story of long-term abuse and say, “why did she stay with him?” and not “why did he treat her like that?”
This made me cry.
I didn’t realize I wasn’t the only one. Like even if I hear OTHER people fighting and the guy raises his voice I always KNOW that he’s gonna kill that other man or woman…..even if he’s not. It’s just what the raised voice does to me
To this day, all the men in my family do this to me when they want to shut me up or intimidate me to do what they want.
My ex, as gentle a man you could hope to meet, did this once, along with grabbing me by the neck and pinning me to the wall because I was doing something he didn’t want me to do.
It’s like Louis CK said once about the equivalent being a world were men could only date a half-bear half-lion and hope for the best.
Tbh I thought it was common knowledge. Like, I just assumed everyone knew that getting loud and/or moving aggressively towards women scared the fuck out of us.
I’m actually glad to see it’s not. Doesn’t make me any less scared but it tells me that when this happens it’s not always on purpose. So there’s that.
I had to explain to my partner that I’ve had exes try and kill me before and I can’t deal with his anger. at first he just tried to explain that he’s not mad at me or that he wouldn’t hurt me but he saw the kind of wreck it makes me and eventually he understood that that has never mattered before and now if he gets mad he usually goes outside or messes around downstairs with his fishtanks.
my partner used to be a head chef in a resort, used to build cars and he’s a manager in a factory, he’s used to yelling at everything and everyone when stuff isn’t working but once he realised how painful it was for me he controls himself when I’m there and comes and finds me to explain why he was mad when he’s calmer (so I stop freaking out that it’s my fault).
he’s a loud, explosive, confident man with a hair trigger temper and he can still pull himself together and control that anger for the most part around me now, so there’s no “but I’m just like that” or “I can’t help it” excuses to be had.
if you know you’re frightening people and using that ingrained fear of abuse against them to get what you want idk what to say to you except stop.
I find it fascinating that people who choose not to have children are generally assumed to feel really strongly about not having children (or even to feel really strongly against children, anyone’s children, in general). I am probably not going to have children, not because I REALLY REALLY HATE the idea of having children, but because I don’t really really love it. Out of all the major decisions I will make in my life, this one is the only irreversible one. I can sell a house, quit a job, divorce a spouse, whatever. I cannot unhave a child. I cannot opt out of being a parent once I become a parent. I can’t even take a step back for the sake of self-care or whatever, or else my child will suffer.
So for me, having children is fuck yes or not at all. The default will be to remain childfree. Having children should be an opt-in decision, not an opt-out one. Until/unless I develop really strong feelings about wanting to have children, I won’t have them, even if that means I never end up having them at all.
As a mother, I really wish more people gave having children this kind of clear contemplation and thought. It’s an irreversible decision. Too many people don’t understand that.
this this this this this.
Shoutout to those closeted gay/trans people who can’t vent to their families about why they’re so scared of Trump because they’d have to out themselves for people to understand
The problem with suicidal thoughts is that they’re not just there when your sad. You’ll be there, chillin, reading a book or talking to a friend and you’ll think ‘This is nice. But do you know what would be better? Death.’
@lumos-vs-nox This is referred to as “mild suicidal ideation“ or the desire for suicide without substantial action behind it. It often happens when someone deals with prolonged mental health issues and suicidality at a young age. When you’re young, we go through a period where our neural pathways completely rearrange- the things that happen to us at that time will influence these changes. In a way, suicidal ideation becomes an ingrained coping mechanism. A sort of “well at least suicide is always there for me”. Your brain is part-muscle, it remembers things, it learns, it’s super great at adapting, this is just a reflex. It doesn’t mean you are weak, it doesn’t mean you aren’t in recovery.
thank you for posting this, you turned a feeling many people have into words!
this is what healthy people don’t get
this is so important SO IMPORTANT
and i didn’t know this until right now and it like changed my whole outlook on my illness and recovery
Oh my god
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