The Gangly Man Himself, Jonathan Crane

Your purpose in life is not to love yourself but to love being yourself.

If you goal is to love yourself, then your focus is directed inward toward yourself, and you end up constantly watching yourself from the outside, disconnected, trying to summon the “correct” feelings towards yourself or fashion yourself into something you can approve of.

If your goal is to love being yourself, then your focus is directed outward towards life, on living and making decisions based on what brings you pleasure and fulfillment.

Be the subject, not the object. It doesn’t matter what you think of yourself. You are experiencing life. Life is not experiencing you.

After being raised in abuse, it can take a long time to even notice that you’re uncomfortable with a situation you’re in.

I remember for the first time, acknowledging that certain situations made me feel awful, and I wasn’t comfortable taking part in them anymore, only after I escaped. When you’re abused, you’re trapped in a state of almost constant discomfort. To the point where you don’t even notice, don’t even try to fight it, the discomfort is just something you ignore almost instinctively, because you’re so used to not being able to do anything about it. You’re threatened and cornered into having no other option. So accepting everything and anything you feel uncomfortable about, even after escaping abuse, can be almost natural, you don’t even think about it as something avoidable, something you can opt out of.

It takes time to realize that the discomfort is not there to push aside and endure and avoid. It takes time to realize that you have options. That you’re not forced to socialize, to be in a place that stresses the hell out of you, that you don’t have to please whoever wants you to be there, that you can leave, or refuse to even come there in the first place. That you won’t lose anything, or be punished or miss opportunities, if you refuse to endure discomfort. That uncomfortable situations are not ‘mandatory to learn and grow’, they’re places your body doesn’t want to be, and shouldn’t have to be forced into. You’re allowed to strive for comfort. You’re allowed to only put yourself in situations that you really want to be in.

Remember this every day, and keep going.

you’re going to love again, find a job again, create art again, do what you love again, feel powerful again. you’re going to be back on track. i don’t know when, but you are going to feel like yourself again, eventually. this isn’t the end. hang in there.

Abusers love to pretend to be misunderstood and dealing with a lot of pain, guilt, concern or fear at all times. They love to make out their past so it seems like they’re some kind of tragic hero, or someone who is only abusive because of everything they’ve bee thru. They will yell at you for “not considering their feelings enough”, you can recognize it in phrases “do you ever think about how it is for me? do you think i enjoy doing this?” as if you are the one ignoring their feelings, and not the reverse. Even when they look happy you’re supposed to always assume that deep inside they’re in some kind of pain and be as understanding as possible.

Don’t get fooled by this. People who are dealing with a lot of pain, guilt, concern, shame, and fear don’t take it out on their closest ones. People who are aware of what compassion is wont yell at you for not taking enough of their feelings into account. People who are living with pain and regret don’t look fucking smug and self-important all the time! People who live in shame wouldn’t risk hurting you and increasing shit they’re feeling ashamed about! People who are hurt and living in a lot of pain wouldn’t just go and try to make you feel awful about yourself too! They wouldn’t make inappropriate jokes or call you names or try to convince you that if they feel bad, you need to feel bad too, and if they are doing that, then you are not supposed to take their feelings into account anymore! 

Your empathy should not extend to those who have it as a goal to hurt you, when another person wants to cause you pain, this is where your empathy for them should end. No matter what they’re pretending to go thru, doesn’t it feel a little bit too convenient that their lives are so “tragic” and “misunderstood” and for that reason you’re supposed to just let them take it out on you and “understand where they’re coming from”? If they’re leading you to believe you’re a bad person if you don’t let them hurt you, they can just fuck off! It’s just a sham to make you believe that allowing them to cause you pain is noble from you, it’s not, your life has bigger value than to be a punching bag for someone, noble thing is to protect your life from that kind of parasite.

Some of the simplest, best, ftw advice ever.

Honestly, probably the best social tip I could ever give you guys is literally just ask. Need to make a doctor's appointment but don't know how? Call the doctor's office and ask. Don't know the meaning of what someone said? Ask them. Don't understand the instructions you were given? Ask them to repeat or clarify. This has literally never failed me, no one's gotten angry, no one's refused to answer.

Even in situations where you think it might not work, I once accidentally missed a deadline to accept a job offer, so I called and asked if they could reset it and they did. Just today I called a doctor and asked how to schedule an appointment, the lady told me how, and then I did it. Didn't know if someone was being sarcastic or not, so I asked and they told me. Just ask.

😳💚

every tiktok expert: make short fun videos 9-15 seconds long

me: how about a 2-minute spoken word monolog about unlearning trauma responses?

in case no one told you, or in case you know but you need encouragement taking the next step: it’s never too late to unlearn a law that is now holding you back, it’s never too late to write a new law

Because where something comes from matters.

art is not static

big takeaway from 'cant separate art from artist' talk is that some buds have VERY hard time recognizing art is not static and its meaning changes over time. they sarcastically ask 'so if you find out someone is bad their art somehow gets worse?' UH YEAH BUD THAT IS EXACTLY IT

seen things like: 'okay you listen to song and AT FIRST you love it then you learn its by charlie manson you cant just suddenly say now its bad' as if this is gotcha moment. i assure you bud i absolutely CAN suddenly say its bad now thats literally how artistic experience works

BUD WITH EYEROLL: 'so you are saying art changes based on what you know or dont know about who made it like some objective constantly evolving thing just because of how it makes you feel?' CHUCK: 'yes now you are just describing art now over and over again as if you are making a point'

All-New Wolverine #21

You might be suffering the consequences of long term abuse if:

you feel uncomfortable taking credit for things you did

you feel uncomfortable being praised or complimented, and you feel like sudden expectation or blackmail are coming up afterwards, you need to find intentions behind praise

someone getting mad at you is absolutely terrifying and you’ll do anything to avoid it

you don’t ever feel it’s safe to stand up for yourself, you can predict that even if you did that, ultimately you’d only be punished and hurt even worse, and you can’t risk it

you always analyze every situation with „am I bothering these people? Is my presence a burden to everyone?“ even when you’re with friends or at a place where you were invited

you don’t feel like a part of anything, not your family or your peer group, you worry everyone is going to figure out that you’re out of line trying to pretend to be a part of their group and reject you

you worry that you have no value to anyone and you feel like you need to deserve to be a part of society

you feel inexplicably ashamed of yourself, there are so many situations you can’t talk about, or even think about without feeling overwhelming shame

you keep feeling everything bad that happens is your fault, even for things that aren’t related to you directly, you feel responsible and like you should have done something to prevent it

you feel like everything would be better if only you didn’t exist

you struggled with suicidal thoughts before (or still struggle with them)

you feel like anyone who hurts you is justified in doing so and you deserve to be hurt

you’re terrified of being punished for anything you do, and don’t do, to the point where you paralyze and can’t do things you’re supposed to do at times, because you can’t tell if it’s going to end up in you suffering punishment

you don’t feel comfortable being touched or cuddled, you feel like it makes you weak if you desire it

you don’t feel okay showing big emotions in front of anyone, you feel your feelings in secret, or not at all

nobody knows just in how much pain you are. You don’t show it.

you can tell that even if you did talk to someone about your problems, you’d be accused of exaggerating, asking for attention, faking it, or being weak for not controlling your emotions better

you feel like the dream of a good life, where you’re loved and happy and cherished, is something completely unrealistic and it feels silly to even imagine it, it’s out of reach for you

If it’s only a few you can relate to, they can be caused by outside factors, but if you relate to almost all of these, it’s likely you’ve been living in a situation that is unbearable for human being without severely affecting their personality and mental health. Abuse can cause all of this, and these are not little things, this is lowered quality of life.