An Artist : Aw Man! I Saw My Arts Were Reposted On Instagram. I’ve Asked Them To Take My Arts Down

Emotional Abuse can turn every day interactions into problems.

I have had a recent experience while in training for my new job and I thought I might express some thoughts about it.

The woman who has been training me is sweet and I like her, but her methods of critique and helping me get things correct is a bit…harsh from my perspective. And she’s not trying to be at all. She is really trying to help.

However, emotional abuse taints the perception and actions of a victim even years after abuse. And the worst part is that each victim’s experience is varied. The stereotypes of abuse we see in our media is just that: a stereotype. Abuse comes in many forms and each individual will have different triggers. However, abusers do have some commonalities, usually by being controlling or will get violent over little, silly or normal things.

I figured it would help to re-frame the way she approached it and maybe some people out there will consider this in the future. We obviously can’t know someone’s history and often you can’t pick out an abuse victim from a crowd. But to help avoid triggering emotional distress and protective behaviors, I think people aught to at least be aware and maybe avoid the following approaches when teaching or instructing someone else. ____________________________________________________

Over correcting a former victim can come off as a bit over-bearing, especially when their abuser was extremely controlling. Mine (who happened to be my mother) was not a very nurturing type. So when she would try to teach me how to do something, if I did it wrong during the first try she would often just take over. And it wasn’t like, “Oh sweetie let me do it.” No, I was more shoved out of the way by an agitated/angry parent who complained that I was unable to complete the task.

Behaviors over correcting caused: -Hesitating to help someone with a task unless they give permission. -Emotional distress and agitation when being corrected on every task, shot etc.

Things to change: -Correct when things need to be early on in training, gently. Let the person training do the task so they learn it properly. -If possible, let a few oopsie’s slide and inform the person of their mistake and NEXT time try to correct it (as long as this is applicable.) Don’t correct too much in front of customers or clients unless it’s important to do so.

While my co-worker was well meaning, she would often ask me to stop and look at the picture I had just taken (I am a photographer) and to think about what was wrong with it.

“Now stop here, and look at that picture. Think about it. What’s wrong with it?” Is a pretty close phrasing to what she used. To someone who had a healthy upbringing or no exposure to abuse would never consider how that might affect someone who has.

Growing up in an emotionally abusive household where being wrong was met with agitation, yelling or screaming, this means that phrase creates a deer in the headlights reaction from me. I won’t think because the only thing I know in that moment is that I did something wrong. While I know now I won’t face violent tantrums in response, that reaction is still ingrained in my head. So instead of getting a productive response, it reinforces the negative one.

Behaviors caused by not allowing the victim to be wrong sometimes: -Victim will freeze up when confronted about doing something wrong and shut down. -May bring back a defensive persona and/or victim will shut down or experience severe emotional distress.

Things to change: -When a person in training gets something wrong, inform them in a gentle manner. “Ope, looks like you have a stray collar there. Let’s do that one more time.” Or “We can’t see her arm in the shot. Bring that back around.” Avoid asking them to point out the mistake if you can as this puts the spotlight on their them and reinforces the negative reaction and can cause an emotional shut down.

I want to share a little animation that James made as an anniversary gift. It’s what we wish we could do in Animal Crossing New Horizons when we play together.💕

I finally caught up on Steven Universe and felt like I needed to make my own #gemsona * * * * * * #procreate #iPadPro #stevenuniverse #amethyststevenuniverse

To create the unique look of Paperman, the animation was rendered with a base lighting pass that produced a simplified graphic image. Then, facial features, hair, and cloth animation were hand-drawn over using a process called “Final Line.”

My Etsy Shop is Updated!

The following art prints are now available! All Wings of Fire prints run $5 for a single and $12 for a pack. The Mikhail print is $20! Go to Starteller’s Art Prints!

IMPORTANT!!!

that is all

ALMOST TIME

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Y'know, whenever people want to talk about why aspec people 'count' as an oppressed identity, they tend to go for the big stuff like corrective rape and conversion therapy. And like, we should absolutely talk about that stuff. Obviously those things are terrible and important and we need to raise awareness and deal with them.

But I feel like people often gloss over how… quietly traumatising it is to grow up being told that there is only one way to be happy— and that everybody who doesn't conform to that norm is secretly miserable and just doesn't know it— and then to gradually realise that, for reasons that you cannot help, that is never going to happen for you.

You're not going to find a prince/princess and ride off into the sunset. Or if you do, then it's not going to look exactly the way it does in fairytales. You're not going to get a 'normal' relationship, because you are not 'normal', and everybody and everything around you keeps telling you that that's bad.

You see films where characters are presented as being financially stable, genuinely passionate about their work and surrounded by friends and family, but then spend the rest of the plot realising that the real thing they needed was a (romantic and sexual) partner, to make them 'complete'.

You absorb the idea that any relationships you have with allo people will ultimately be unfulfilling on their side, and that this will be your fault (even if you discussed things with your partner beforehand and they decided that they were a-okay with having those sorts of boundaries in a relationship) unless you deliberately force yourself into situations that you aren't comfortable with, so as to make uo for your 'defects'.

You grow up feeling lowkey gaslighted because all the adults in your life (even in LGBT+ spaces. In fact especially in LGBT+ spaces) are insisting that it's totally normal to not be attracted to anybody at your age, and then you go to school and everybody keeps pressuring you to name somebody you're attracted to because they can't imagine not being attracted to anybody at your age.

And then you get older and realise that one day you're going to be expected to leave home, and that one day all your friends are going to be expected to put aside other relationships and 'settle down' with a primary partner and you don't know what you're going to do after that because you straight up don't have a roadmap for what a 'happy ending' looks like for someone like you.

(And the LGBT+ community is little help, because so many people in there are more than happy to tell you that you're not oppressed at all. That you're like this because you don't want to have sex, and/or you don't want to have any relationships, that your orientation is some sort of choice you made— like not eating bananas— rather than an intrinsic part of you that a lot of us have at some point tried to wish away.)

Even if you're grey or demi, and do experience those feelings, you still have to deal with the fact that you're not experiencing them the 'normal' way and that that's going to effect your relationships and your ability to find one in the first place.

If you're aiming for lifelong singlehood (which is valid af) or looking for a qpp, then you're going to have to spend the rest of your life either letting people make wrong assumptions about your situation (at best that your relationship is of a different nature than it actually is, at worst that the life you've chosen is really just a consolation prize because you 'failed' at finding a romantic/sexual partner) or pulling out a powerpoint and several webpages every time you want to explain it.

This what being aspec looks like for most people, and it is constantly minimised as being unimportant and not worth fighting against— even in aspec spaces— because we've all on some level absorbed the idea that oppression is only worth fighting against if it's big, and dramatic, and immediately obvious. That all the little incidents of suffering that we experience on a daily basis are not enough to be worth bothering about.

I mean, who gives a shit if you feel broken, inherently toxic as a partner, and like you're going to be denied happiness because of your orientation? Shouldn't we all just shut up and thank our lucky stars we don't have to deal with all the stuff some of the other letters in the acronym have to put up with (leaving aside the fact that there are many aspec people who identify with more than one letter)?

So you know what? If you're aspec and you relate to anything I've said above (or can think of other things relating your your aspec-ness that I haven't mentioned) then this is me telling you now that it's enough. Even if we got rid of all the big stuff (which we're unlikely to do any time soon because— Shock! Horror!— the big stuff is actually connected to all the small stuff) we would still be unable to consider our fight 'over' because what you are experiencing is not 'basically okay' and something we should just be expected to 'put up with'.

No matter what anybody tells you, we have the right to demand more from life than this.