Look, with very few exceptions no one sets out with the intention of being a shitty abusive parent. A lot of shitty parents think they’re doing it right. A lot of shitty parents think they’re doing their best. A lot of shitty parents think that abusive shit they do is not really abusive and for the greater good of their child.
A lot of shitty parents love their kids, and would die for them, but they can still be abusive and shitty parents because they do shit they learned from their parents and don’t pause a moment to think they may be doing it wrong because “I love my kid, abusive parents don’t love their kids, so I can’t be an Abusive Parent, not me, I’m good”. A lot of shitty parents have their good moments, their good sides, and their kids can love them for it and then be doubly hurt when the good moment ends and things are shitty again.
Shitty parents are complicated people, the kids they raise are complicated people, and human relationships as a whole are a complex hot mess. There is not one right or wrong way to respond to abuse or choose how to handle the relationship to a shitty parent. No we don’t wanna hear how you’d personally handle it in our shoes. You’re not in our shoes. STFU.
BTW this is not some weird defense of shitty and abusive parents but for Christ’s sake, this attitude that Shitty Parents - either real or fictional - are monsters out of a scary story who are contractually obliged to be shitty 100% of the time, all around, in every aspect of their lives, is actually harmful. It’s untrue. It’s stupid. It will lead kids of Shitty Parents to think that well, THEIR parents are not 100% evil and dastardly all the time, therefore they’re not Actually Abusive, I must be exaggerating.
Shitty parents are not old school Disney villains breaking into song about how they love to do evil deeds to hurt their own children. They’re people. Learn to tell the two things apart, for fuck’s sake.
There are people in my life who have told me “I believe the rapture will happen in my lifetime.” But they also agonize over their retirement plans.
I also had a person in my life who have told me “I believe the rapture will happen in my lifetime” and that person sold their house and moved into the desert and died trying to fast like in some Bible story.
Like, it’s all just words until you have to actually make material choices about your life. Those choices are far, far more indicative of what a person actually believes.
As someone recently diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, one thing that’s been helping me grapple with the intense shame I have over all my “wasted potential” is accepting that potential doesn’t exist and never did.
This sounds so harsh, but please bare with me.
I procrastinated a lot growing up. I still procrastinate today, but less so. And yet, I got good grades. I could write an A+ paper that “knocked [my professor]’s socks off” in the hour before class and print it with sweat running down my face.
I was so used to hearing from teachers and family that if I just didn’t procrastinate and worked all the time, I could do anything! I had all this potential I wasn’t living up to!
And that’s true, as far as it goes, but that’s like saying if Usain Bolt just kept going he could be the fastest marathon runner in the world. Why does he stop at the end of the race??
If ANYONE could make their top speed/most productive setting the one they used all the time, anyone could do anything. But you can’t. Your top speed is not a speed you’re able to sustain.
Now, I’ve found that I do need to work on not procrastinating. Not because the product is better, even, but because it’s better for my mental health and physical health to not have a full, sweating, panicked breakdown over every task even if the task itself turns out excellently. It’s a shitty way to live! You feel bad ALL the time! And I don’t deserve to live like that anymore.
So all of this to say, I’m not wasting a ton of potential. I don’t have an ocean of productivity and accomplishments inside of me that I could easily, effortlessly access if I just sat down 8 hours a day and worked. There’s no fucking way. That’s not real. It’s an illusion. It’s fine not to live up to an illusion.
And if you have ADHD, I mean this from the bottom of my heart: you do not have limitless potential confounded by your laziness. You have the good potential of a good person, and you can access it with practice and work, but do not accept the story that you are choosing not to be all that you are or can be. You are just a human person.
lesbian and queer fashion includes hijabs, niqabs, burqas, and other religious and cultural clothing. queer muslims, queer jewish people, queer people of color, should not have to choose between their faith and their presentation. they do not need to sacrifice their cultural clothing in order to satisfy western standards of queer gender presentation. butch and femme muslims, jewish people, and poc who wear niqabs, burqas, niqabs, yarmulkes, etc- are not “straying” from lesbian fashion or culture, they are adding to it and making it more rich and beautiful. all sapphics deserve to feel safe in their head coverings. if you’re a sapphic who wears head coverings/body coverings or cultural clothing of some sort, you are valuable and beautiful just as you are.
Do you ever talk to someone and they bring up trans men and it because very clear very quickly the only trans men they have talk too are the rich white trans guys who can afford to fully transition at a young age and didn’t have to deal with most of the shit other trans guys had too.
Like no I don’t think the dude who got top surgery at 16 is an accurate representation of every single trans guy ever.
People will complain about trans men and they are just talking about Kalvin Garrah and no body else .
