\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nI don\u2019t know all the reasons why I like dark things, and I don\u2019t think I need to know them all, but\u2026 I was just looking at the blog of that person who said I \u201cdehumanize and fetishize\u201d gay men, and I saw that he was quite young (15) and his blog was all full of pastel colors and references to his mental illness and something dawned on me that I hadn\u2019t thought about in a Tumblr context at all.
\nPart of my PTSD is about experiences I had in hospitals, and because of that one of my triggers is\u2026 not pastels, all by themselves, but like\u2026 have you ever stayed in a hospital as a kid? And everything is covered in soothing soft colors and all the nurses wear scrubs with like\u2026 cute animal drawings on them and everyone talks in a sing-song voice and reassures you things won\u2019t hurt when they OBVIOUSLY will and you\u2019d rather they tell the truth, accept that you have good reasons to be scared, and get it the hell overwith?
\nYeah, I think I just figured out why those kids\u2019 blogs give me a weird tingly feeling of creeping dread.
\nAnd I think I figured out, also, where my intense leeriness of\u00a0\u201csafe spaces\u201d and trigger warnings comes from too\u2013even though as a person with PTSD I\u2019m supposed to want them.
\nIt\u2019s because in my experience, people who were trying to make me feel safe were LYING. They were lying because it was in their interest\u2013in mine, too, but in theirs\u2013for me to feel calm and soothed. For me not to feel despair, or anger, or blind screaming rage.
\n\u2026Is it any wonder I like the stories where the people with the knives and the cruel smiles and the mind games are blatant about it? Or that I might want a few knives of my own, even though I have no desire to hurt anyone who isn\u2019t going to get off on it?
\nI don\u2019t want those kids to not need safety.
\nI want them to stop pretending safety looks the same for everyone.
\nYes, this.
\nWhen people tell me \u201cYou\u2019re safe,\u201d I don\u2019t think of Helpful Adult saving me from the monsters under the bed. I think of my teachers, saying the people who hurt me would never do such a thing, and I should stop lying because I was perfectly safe. I think of the people who used to hug me until my lungs wouldn\u2019t fill and my ribs creaked, and got away without a whisper of a reprimand. Because they were pretty and soft, and I was cold and harsh.
\nThat\u2019s not safe, to me. That\u2019s the most dangerous place in the world, because the people who live there will do anything- anything at all- if it means they don\u2019t have to acknowledge how nasty their walled garden has really gotten. Because if I defend myself, they can\u2019t pretend anymore. And they sure as hell won\u2019t defend me.
\nTHIS.
\nI have experienced a lot of passive-aggressive emotional abuse in my life and let me tell you \u2013 my abusers had a vested interest in keeping me calm.\u00a0
\nUpset means resistance. Upset means that they have to face the damage they\u2019ve caused. Upset means that you may finally realize that you should leave. Upset means that you might just get up and leave. So they soothe you. They make you doubt the validity of your feelings. They make you feel guilty for getting upset. They make you think that the issue was your fault in the first place. They make you feel like getting upset is pointless. They make you feel like you have wronged them and yourself by being unhappy.\u00a0
\nYou do not have to let yourself be soothed. You do not have to let them take the fight out of you. If you do not feel safe; you do not have to feel guilty for getting yourself out. You do not have to feel guilty for being upset when someone has wronged you. You do not have to feel guilty for seeking your own brand of safety.
\nThis is the most poignant description of what it actually feels like to be helpless in an institution that I\u2019ve ever read.
\nIt\u2019s a special kind of violence to be hurt and to be told that it\u2019s kindness. It\u2019s intensely intimate and perverted. Succumbing to it is\u2026 spiritually destructive in a way that I have a hard time putting to words. Just\u2026 in my safe space I\u2019m always fighting because as long as I continue to struggle that very special form of violence can\u2019t take hold of me and I\u2019ll be okay.
\nLike\u2026 when I get triggered about some of these experiences I\u2019ll even have fantasies about dying while resisting. I mean\u2026 I don\u2019t want to go into details because super triggering but\u2026 just think about that for a moment.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a special kind of violence to be hurt and to be told that it\u2019s kindness. It\u2019s intensely intimate and perverted.\u201d
\nMy experiences are not exactly the same as yours, but this, yes.
\nThis is why I have such intense reactions to unkind SJ, whether it\u2019s \u201csit down, shut up, and listen\u201d (gee, what might that resemble?) or \u201crepresentation means heroes with no serious flaws.\u201d
\nBecause that particular \u201cshh, shh, shh, if we pretend utopia is already here, it soon will be\u201d lie has hurt me EVERY TIME I\u2019ve heard it.
\nI\u2019m learning now that the roots of a lot of my trauma was this exact \u201cyour life is perfect, you\u2019re not allowed to feel anything other than happiness, you\u2019re ungrateful,\u201d yelling more if I cried, any inkling of talking back or standing up for myself was met with twice the punishment, etc
\nSo while it\u2019s understandable that those in a dark place seek softness and gentle color, and there\u2019s nothing wrong with that, those of us forced into it seek the grime as a form of truth and expression that wasn\u2019t allowed for us, or a fictional playground of violence and anger where we can actually scream our frustrations onto a canvas.
\nAnd telling people that they should ditch such exploration for holy goodness is just another form of telling us our anger shouldn\u2019t exist
\nBoom.
\nI needed this on my blog again
oh my god yes
\u2018safe spaces\u2019 are not safe for me, they\u2019re a sort of mind prison where the limitations on how it is acceptable to express myself become limitations on what thoughts I can have and my perceptions of reality, and the endless things one is supposed to remember and consider when phrasing anything make me silent and ashamed.
Yep, any space labeled safe i instantly want to know for whom. That way I know who not to offend while I\u2019m there, and can relax about other groups and whether I might accidentally oops.
this is part of how we speak the next turn into being. Keep it up.
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