lanning

redstonedust:

actually kinda funny to me that fanfiction is known as a hobby for cringe 13 year olds because personally over half of the fanfic authors i know are married 30 year olds with mediocre admin jobs they attend to inbetween posting chapters of their latest gay sex epic adventure

vulcanette:

letters-to-lgbt-kids:

My dear lgbt+ kids,

Here is a hug for everyone who ever got a whiff of garbage, booze, mold, or cat urine… and immediately thought “Oh, it smells like my childhood in here”.

A hug for those who ever wanted to tell a funny childhood story and had to stop themselves because they remembered that “climbing over garbage piles to reach your room” or “a kitchen full of mice and cockroaches” is actually not a relatable experience for most people and may just get you horrified or pitiful stares and concerned questions.

A hug for the ones who feel like they spent all those supposedly carefree childhood days making up excuses, trying to hide the filth they lived in (No, you can’t come over, we are renovating. No, I can’t let you inside, we are still renovating. No, I am not hiding anything, we are just renovating. Huh, no, I don’t know where that weird skin rash is coming from. It has nothing to do with this. I am fine.), constantly worrying that someone may see right through your lies, that someone may find out what’s really going on in your home.

A hug for those who still find themselves living by survival rules they had to follow as kids (Hide food in your room. Hide your arms, so people don’t see the flea bites. Always wear shoes inside, so you don’t step into dog poop. Never tell anyone the real number of cats and dogs in your home.), even if the rules don’t make sense anymore.

A hug for those who had to teach themselves to regularly brush their teeth, comb their hair, take a shower or change their clothes (and may still struggle to remember to do all these things) because your parents never taught you.

A hug for those who have a complicated relationship with their siblings now because they needed to be their parent and their sibling and their bodyguard all in one, and don’t know how to be just a sibling now. For those who still wake up in a cold sweat some nights because they thought they heard their siblings scream. For those who didn’t eat so their siblings could. For those who came home from school and immediately went to change their sibling’s diaper because they knew it hasn’t been changed since they left.

Growing up in filthy conditions can go hand-in-hand with physical abuse - but it doesn’t need to. It is a kind of childhood neglect and that is a traumatizing experience, even if “nothing else happened”. We sometimes think that there needs to be a history of abuse for trauma to be valid but that’s not true. Neglect and unsafe living conditions absolutely “count” as well.

Apart from the obvious physical health risks of living in a dirty home, it also leads to kids growing up too fast. People who didn’t know the truth about your home life may have even praised you for being “mature beyond your years” - but the reality is that you just learned to disconnect yourself from your own needs as a kid. You were (directly or indirectly) told to protect your parents from embarrassment, from having to shoulder the shame of not being able or willing to provide their kids with a safe, clean living environment themselves. Instead, YOU carried that shame. You had to learn to value their needs over yours.

These internalized beliefs can leave you with a deep sense of shame and guilt. The feeling of having a (literal) dirty secret often stays with you, even when your living environment changes - but it wasn’t your fault. You were a kid and they were adults. You deserved to be protected, it wasn’t your job to be the protector.

All the feelings you may have about your parents and your childhood now - both the positive and the negative ones - are valid. They are allowed to be contradicting. You may be angry at and feel sorry for your parents, hate them and love them, feel like they were victims of their circumstances and traumatized you, all at the same time. That’s okay and actually pretty common for people who grew up neglected.

With all my love,

Your Tumblr Dad

ph-cutie:

sheepish is a really funny word. fuck im so nervous (turns into this)

thelordsoftherings:

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien