"You're Losing Blood" No I Know Exactly Where It Is. The Floor. Don't Ever Underestimate Me.

Somehow almost all my poems make people cry. So either I'm:

One: a bad poet but my stories are sad enough that I can make people cry through bad poetry

Two: a good poet with stories that are just kinda sad but can be manipulated with words into beautiful poems that make people cry

Three: a good poet with sad stories that are enhanced through poetry to make people cry

Or four: a bad poet with stories that aren't sad and people are just crying because they feel bad that I'd choose to read them bad poetry

Either way, every time I read a poem to an audience, it seems like at least one person will cry or tell me they almost cried and had to actively hold themselves back.

Don't know exactly what to make of this. My poems are usually about my bad life experiences though, so I guess that probably plays a role.

Had my first PTSD flashback that I actually knew was a PTSD flashback. For the past like, 2 years, I've been having these random panic attacks where images of bad things that have happened to me pop into my head and feel so realistic.

Somehow I didn't realize it, but those are definitely actually PTSD flashbacks. And I didn't figure that out until last night, when I had the first big one I've had since I got diagnosed. Then it all clicked and I realized that like, half my panic attacks have actually been caused by PTSD flashbacks. So now I know I definitely filled out a few questions wrong on the questionnaire.

One of the problems with my brother leaving for college is that now my parents might start to notice I exist...

They are mother and child. Do not separate them.

Confessions from an emotional abuse victim:

#1 Attention

Sometimes I find myself wanting love and attention, then reprimand myself because a person in my past told me it was wrong. But I have finally realized that human connection is a basic need in life for most people. I shouldn't feel guilty for getting sad when I don't have many opportunities for human connection.

I've gotten so used to either being completely reliant on one person or completely reliant on myself and forgot that there is a different way to live. I can have multiple people I get my connection from without still feeling isolated. I just needed to find the right people while in the right mental state.

modern empath crisis of faith

Confessions from an emotional abuse victim:

#2 Tough Love

Recently, I've been finding myself thinking about the concept of 'tough love'. That is one of the terms I used to describe the abuse and manipulation before I fully accepted that I had been abused. But the thing is, what he did was not love.

Love is not being judgemental. Love is not being brutally 'honest' about someone else's flaws because they should fix them.

Love is making sure someone is cared for even if they don't ask for it or are a bit apprehensive. Love is when my friend noticed I was acting a bit different and asked me when I last drank something. After I told her I didn't know, she told me I should drink something. I refused and said I was fine, but she still went and bought me a bottle of water and made me drink it in front of her.

I feel like the term 'tough love' isn't really a term that should be used in the first place though. Even though there are situations like that, where it seemingly fits the term and is actually okay, it's still a slippery slope into justifying abuse.

If people would point out that my abuser was being really harsh to me, I could say it was just because he cared. It was because he wanted me to improve as a person so I could do better. His punches and kicks and yelling and degrading were just his way of saying he cares. It's 'tough love'. This term helped catch me, and I'm sure many others as well, into the cycle of justifying the actions of my abuser. It let me believe it was my fault for feeling hurt from what he did.

I think it might be time to retire this concept. Yes, sometimes you need to be a little pushy to make sure someone you love is cared for, but even then, you still should be kind. Honestly, that doesn't need its own term. It's just being caring. We don't need any more ways for victims caught in the throes of abuse to try to justify it.