Made This With A Picrew That Was Cute And Great For Pride Month! I Like How Customizable It Is. Makes

Mother's Day can be a painful reminder, so here's a salute to all the kids and adult children who grew up with absent mothers, angry mothers, negligent mothers, abusive mothers, overly-critical mothers, codependent mothers, overwhelmed and struggling mothers, mothers who ignored your cries for help, mothers who sacrificed your happiness to placate others, mothers who tried to do better but failed, and mothers who didn't try quite hard enough.

And to every child and adult who has a complicated relationship with their mother or caretaker--it's okay to feel conflicted. It's okay to feel hurt and love and resentment and pain and sympathy and longing and guilt bundled up into one big tangled ball. It's okay to struggle to reconcile the bad memories with the good ones that simultaneously exist. It's okay to be angry about the ways your parent failed you, and also aware of their personal struggles, and the way their parents in turn failed them. It's okay to recognize that you were loved but also that you were treated unfairly, unkindly. Contradictions are the natural state of the world. Multiple truths coexist. It's okay to be conflicted.

Parents are humans. Human relationships are complicated, and cannot be summarized by a greeting card. Wherever you are coming from, I hope your future holds healing and love, love, love.

Abuse has a goal behind it, and a lot of the time, it's about changing the victims behavior. If someone screams at you for not doing X activity, eventually you learn to do X activity. If someone hits you when you defy them, eventually you learn not to defy them. If someone abuses you frequently enough, and you begin to break down to their will... It is possible to reach a point where it may seem like you're not being abused anymore.

They don't yell anymore because you stay quiet and do what you're told. They don't threaten you anymore because you don't voice even the slightest disagreement or need. What used to be screaming fighting arguments have become lectures at your expense. They may even praise you for doing what they want you to. And all those mundane moments - breakfast, the rare kind act - stand out more. Your perception of the relationship skews even more. It's all normal now.

And it's still abuse. It's just reached its end goal - wearing you down so badly that they don't need to overtly abuse you anymore to get what they want. All they need to do is make a joke, or complain to guilt you, or tell you want to do/not to do, etc. etc. The fact that's all it takes now doesn't make what's happening to you less severe - if anything, it means you're in much, much more danger than you could realize.

It's abuse. It's horrific. It's just not obvious anymore... and that's terrifying. You deserve so, so much better. You deserve to truly be safe - not to have your wellbeing held behind fearful compliance. That's not safety. That's not love. That's abuse. It being psychological doesn't make it less dangerous.

villains are fine when they kill people I draw the line at being horrific parents though

You're very right but I gotta point out something insane in this image

WHY IS THE RAINBOW FLAG UPSIDE DOWN?! IS IT SO CURSED IT CAN NOT SAFELY BE DEPICTED IN RELIGOUS MATERIAL? DO THEY OBJECT TO GOD'S PROMISE TO MANKIND THE RAINBOW ??!

at least the watchtower images are still funny

Your cult aesthetic looks like dark cloaks and goblets of virgin blood. My cult reality looked like modest dresses and indoctrination training.

Please don’t forget the real cults that are under the radar and remain mostly unchecked in our society to this very day. Please don’t forget how many people spend years of their lives being abused and misled by these cults.

i’ll have you know well over six tumblr users enjoy my religious trauma shitposts

i want every single amab nonbinary lesbian to know that u belong in lesbian spaces, especially nonbinary lesbian spaces, just as much as any other lesbian, and you not being a binary woman doesn’t mean you can’t identify as a lesbian. the nonbinary lesbian label includes you just as much as it includes every other nonbinary lesbian