wetwareproblem:

Long-term abuse can leave you with a deep-seated need to be hurt.

This isn’t exactly news; basically any expert will tell you the same. But I don’t think a lot of people who haven’t been through it really understand what it’s like. You’re used to being hurt on a regular basis, and any interruption to this pattern? Is dangerous. It’s a sign that things are about to take a turn for the worse – that they’re bottling shit up to explode eventually, or they’re playing some new game you don’t know how to navigate, or they’re withholding the little bit of affection that made the bad times survivable.

So when we finally escape, for a lot of us, there’s this creeping, ever-growing anxiety as we go longer and longer without getting hurt. Eventually, it’s screaming, drowning out any voice in our heads that says “No, this is okay, it’s safe.” A lot of us wind up pulling risky shit, deliberately getting into danger, to find some relief, any relief for that feeling.

But no matter what, it’s not gonna go away easily. Even if we find ourselves with healthy, caring, respectful, sensitive partners, there’s that anxiety-voice in the back of our brains going “If they’re not hurting you now, what are they planning? Do they even love you at all? Are they just using you?”

It needs managed and dealt with somehow.

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Long-term abuse can leave you with a deep-seated need for control.

This isn’t exactly news; basically any expert will tell you the same. But I don’t think a lot of people who haven’t been through it really understand what it’s like. You’re used to control being taken away so you can be used and hurt without consequence, so anything that takes control? Is a threat. It’s a sign that pain is coming – maybe the person taking it was just being friendly until you got close enough to stab, or they were really just cozying up because you were useful, or they want an obedient little puppet instead of you.

So when we finally escape, for a lot of us, there’s this screaming terror response to anything that threatens to take control away from us. It can paralyze us, leave us unable to leave the house because this, this is an environment we can control, this is what safety feels like. A lot of us can slip into abusive patterns ourselves, as our overwhelming need for control makes us take it away from others.

But no matter what, it’s not gonna go away easily. Even if we find ourselves with healthy, caring, respectful, sensitive partners, there’s that anxiety-voice in the back of our brains going “They just made a decision involving both of you. This is how it starts. How long until you’re back in the cage?”

It needs managed and dealt with somehow.

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Fortunately, there’s a convenient answer a lot of us can turn to – a way we can be hurt when we need to be hurt, have control when we need control, all under conditions we personally negotiated and accepted. The rules and boundaries are clear, and if it ever gets too much, hits too close to home, we can stop it immediately.

Is it really any surprise that kink is fucking full of abuse survivors?

And do you understand now why we’re so fucking pissed when you compare it to abuse?

breakthecitysky:

When Kid A and I were out in DC we went to the Holocaust Memorial Museum. It wasn’t on his list, and I’d been before, but I felt like he was old enough to handle it and it was too important to skip not knowing when we’d be back.

The museum is intense, and he did remarkably. He read a lot, and we talked a lot, and he asked questions.  When we were sitting outside afterwards, I asked him what struck him the most.  His observation? That much of it didn’t feel like history.

He’s a smart kid.

I told him that the thing that scared me the most about that time in our history isn’t that people exist who are capable of horrific things – our past is filled with example after example of evil at work in the world.  It’s the hundreds of thousands of people – in Germany and abroad – good people, many, who stood by and did nothing. Looked the other way.  Their silence wasn’t neutrality, it was complicity.

Evil wins when good people do nothing, I told him, and it’s been there in the back of my mind and it won’t go away, like a loose tooth or an itch you can’t quite reach, no matter how hard you contort yourself.

I don’t believe “Republicans” are evil and “Democrats” are good. I try very hard not to speak in generalities.  Parties are no different than the people who make them: there is good, and there is bad, and we have to work together to elevate the one while minimizing the other.  To learn from our mistakes and be willing to admit when we’re wrong, when we’ve made a bad choice, working to make it right.

Wiggling at that tooth, thinking about neutrality, and wondering where the line is, for each of us, the point we reach where we can no longer – must no longer – remain silent.   Wondering, if we don’t write it down somewhere, and revisit it, how easy it is for that line to move without us realizing it.

I’ve got mine written down. Do you?