Permission to be vulnerable in this torture dungeon. Do you guys even like me
(via iamnotlanuk)
btw being excessively nonconfrontational is NOT a positive trait. it does not mean u are “too nice” or just too kind to hurt people, it means u have a problem communicating and you need to work on it.
There are people in the notes saying that the alternative reason is that they’re doing it because of trauma and i gotta say that
1) same. I did have this same problem and reason for doing it.
2) this is not actually an alternate reason. You guys also have a problem communicating and while you can trace exactly WHY you have trouble communicating that doesn’t mean it’s okay to treat everyone like they’re potentially your former abuser and that you DO still need to work on this.
‘This behavior comes from trauma’ and ‘This behavior is harmful to you, to others and to your relationships with others’ are two truths that can co-exist, and that do co-exist quite frequently.
Some of the most frustrating people I’ve ever dealt with were “nonconfrontational” which really meant that they were silent about problems until they built up enough grievances that the problem was irreconcilable, and then delivered an ultimatum without warning. Makes me SO FURIOUS every time.
“There is a time in my late 20s when everything broke open and I temporarily could not function. And I am lucky that everything finally broke, and I was lucky to find therapist(s) to teach me to ask the questions that I ask all of you: ‘But what do you think would happen if you just said ‘no, I don’t want to do it that way’? or ‘can we change the subject now, please’? I swear it won’t be as terrible as you think it will be, most people will just back off and apologize.’ They helped steer me away from my own horrified imaginings of how if I ever pushed back at anyone I would immediately lose their regard and respect for all time and no one would ever love me.
“… I placed this weird value on being laid back and easygoing, like that is something you should always try to be. I think I’ve told people‘It’s really hard to offend me or hurt my feelings, so don’t worry about (that really awful thing you just said).’ My relationships with others existed in a state of almost theological pre-forgiveness. I also had that NiceGuy™ passive-aggressive quality of assuming that just because I was so ‘nice’ all the time that people owed me the same, and even though I hadn’t expressed my needs out loud. How dare people not read my mind?“… What I found out in therapy is that I was not all that laid back. I found out that I have a lot of rules for how I want other people to treat me. I found out that I was in fact really angry about a lot of things, and because I was not expressing that anger in a healthy or timely way, it was all living inside of me, and it decided that if it couldn’t get out it was okay with being really angry at me and pointing out all of my faults instead. Hello, Jerkbrain! And I learned the word ‘boundaries,’ and I started to stand up for myself in small ways and then in bigger ways and the world did not end and people did not hate me and it became easier to be awkward than to seethe.”
–Captain Awkward #176: The Perpetual Seething Mass of Resentment
(via miggylol)
mental illness hasn’t been destigmatised but commercialised
Sooo true.
You can’t have serious conversations about your mental illness and you can’t even mention having one of the more stigmatized mental illnesses.
But you can endure a long line of ads recommending medications, self-care products, gym memberships, self-help books, online seminars, crystals, plants, sunlight lamps and other overpriced shit that’s supposed to be good for your mental health but is mainly just there to take advantage of people who are at a vulnerable place in life. Disgusting.
Marta Russel called this “handicapitlaism” and identified it as one of the traps of bourgeoisie/free market disability rights activism
(via iamnotlanuk)
