soos_mite_ah

It Takes a Village to Raise A Rapist I have been following the case with the Cornell 57 (I know a lot of people call them the Cornell 7 because 7 of the men were part of the gang rape but the group chat had like 57 people). It's a horrifying case and as a woman, I do feel impacted emotionally by the sentiments that are being shared. I have been feeling a sense of depression and hypervigilence wash over me this past week. I can't say that it's debilitating or that I'm surprised. Men are capable of committing some heinous acts. I also think that my educational background in Human Rights makes me better equipped to handle such things emotionally because I basically spent 4 years studying the worst aspects of humanity. That's where I'm at emotionally. Intellectually, as a way to make sense of something like this, I catch myself wondering how something like this could occur in the first place and how someone could think that this kind of behavior is acceptable. I also catch myself trying to make sense of other people's reactionary views around this as well and the general sense of emotional literacy some people have. Because I'm at a stage of life where I'm really thinking about the prospect of being a parent, I find myself thinking what I would do if I had a child who was gang raped like this or what I would do if my child turned out to be a rapist (and how to prevent something like this). I think what happened to Jane Doe was horrific. I remember reading an account where she was doing the ketamine hoping it would knock her out so that there would be more of a basis and a case that this was indeed rape that can be held in court as opposed to coersion that might not yield to imprisonment. It wasn't just a drug fueled orgy. I read accounts of her trying to get away and pushing people away as they made their advances towards her but not being able to fight them off because she was so heavily drugged. I read accounts of her initially consenting to a threesome but also, it's questionable if she wanted it or if she was talked into it after she was drugged up. But even if she wanted a threesome, that doesn't give consent to having 7 other people involved. And then there is all the ways that the school adminsitration and the justice system failed her. The whole thing about the university having the rapists write a fucking essay about what happened is infuriating and makes light of the situation. The way that the rapists still got their degrees from a prestigious institution while the victim couldn't even finish college because of the trauma is tragic. The way that people are trying to dox the victim or downplay what she went through is horrifying. The ways that people are slut shaming her, saying that she's lying, or victim blaming her is abhorrent and appalling. The only thing that seems a bit promising is that at least from what I gathered, her parents are supportive of her and are trying to get justice for her. I know damn well that if I was in this situation, I wouldn't be able to go to my parents for something like this. And that feels scary and depressing on a personal level. As for the boys involved, the leaked messages were absolutely disgusting. The way they referred to her as "free pussy" and the way that one of the guys was like "you can just whip your dick out" or "shop still open" was dehumanizing and nauseating. And all of these boys came from relatively well off families and look like normal people you encounter. This is why I hate the narrative that a rapist is some weirdo in a back alleyway. Most of the time, it's a relatively normal looking person you know or have considered a friend. And sexual assault isn't always something like gang raped or being raped at knife point. Most of the time, it's that guy who is being really clingy and is guilt tripping your for not putting out. It's the guy that gets a little to handsy and because he's like twice your size, you think it's easier to go along with it. It's a guy who cannot take no for an answer and instead sees it as a negotiation point. It's the guy who gets you drunk enough to where you let your guard down and you agree to things you otherwise wouldn't have agreed to. It's the girl who you cannot fight off because she's significantly smaller so any amount of self defense is going to make you look like the agressor. It's the girl who was your baby sitter or your teacher who groomed you and then when they made sexual advances towards you, people congradulated you for losing your virginity at 12 to an older chick. It's the girl who ignores your no's or takes you lack of advances personally because of the notion that all men want it all the time. It's the girl who flashes herself at a concert and throws her underwear at a performer while saying vulgar things. Like another thing that pisses me off is how people assume that women cannot be abusers or rapists or that they cannot be a part of the problem as well. Men can also get sexually assaulted and women are also capable of doing fucked up things. The Ghislaine Maxwells of the world exist and there were women in part of the university administration who were also part of the problem. The Cornell 57 case is one of the more egregious versions of this. The more subtle stuff that I listed above happens all the time. And because it' s more subtle, a lot of people don't realize how wrong it was or what kind of trauma it caused until much later. I think this adds to how people don't realize how common sexual assault is. It also yields them to make excuses for victims because they don't want to come to terms with how widespread of an issue this is. Because acknowledging that a lot of drunk sexual encounters, a lot of ambiguous circumstances, a lot of pressure falls under the umbrella of assault is hard to admit as the perpetrator because you don't want to think of yourself as the creep in the back alley way and it's hard to admit as the victim because that means sitting with the gravity of the situation and any difficult emotions that may come up. A lot of people still end up dating their rapist and convince themselves that what happened was okay because they cannot cope with the trauma or the rapist emotionally manipulated them to downplay what actually happened. Even in the Cornell 57 case, one of the guys contacted Jane Doe and asked if "they were still good?" That wasn't them trying to make amends with her, that was them trying to avoid responsibility and morally justify their heinous acts to themselves. Then there is the typical ways that victims of sexual assault tend to act ranging from having a spotty memory, having their brain block certain things out, and again, being in denial of the severity of the case and as a result, not coming out with charges until much later. And I think a lot of sexual assault issues needs to be addressed at the level of prevention as opposed to handling them in court (that also needs to be addressed, but more on that later). Yes, consent education is good in the university level, especially when it comes to the normalization of more subtle / ambiguous circumstances. However, the most heinous people who are capable of doing shit like getting someone hooked on ketamine so that they can gang rape them are not going to attend such discussions. They will think that shit is stupid and go about their day. The Cornell 7 and the 57 men in the group chat didn't get to where they were due to some innocent misinformation. They were likely enabled all their lives to where, by the time they go to university age, it's too late to employ an intervention to change their behaviors and world views. It's start as early as telling little girls on the playground that if a boy is being agressive towards you, that means they like you. It starts as early as letting your boys be rowdy and agressive instead of correcting that behavior at the root. It starts as early as coddling your son and saying your little boy is "just a little misunderstood" wheras you would never use that term with a little girl who was acting out. It starts with little boys growing into their middle school age without any proper role models so they default to Andrew Tate or whatever the fuck is going on in the media and how society portrays masculinity. It starts with telling children of both genders that they should ignore their personal boundaries and hug / kiss any older relative even if they aren't comfortable with that. It starts with telling children to blindly follow authority which then ends up priming them to accept abuse later on in life. It starts with not educating your kids of both genders the difference of appropriate and inappropriate touch. It starts with your kid getting sexually assaulted or groomed by some adult in the family or community and you not handling that shit properly whether that is you accuse your kid of lying, you continuously bring their abuser around them, you reprimend them for acting out their trauma, you not getting them a mental health professional, or you say it's some how their fault because they must have made a move towards the perpetrator. Ultimately, all of the things above that could have been addressed to create prevention measures against raising rapists or victims boil down to neglect; whether that be regarding how you don't discipline your kids, how you don't pay attention to your kids and what they are watching, and how you don't teach you kids what is right and wrong in terms of the way that they are supposed to treat others or how they are supposed to treat them. And unfortunately, I don't think a lot of parents pay attention the above enough because they aren't introspective enough to address their own biases and how it might impact their parenting nor do they observe their surroundings to learn about how situations like this can occur. Thankfully, as I'm following the discussions of the Cornell 57 case, I see a lot of women calling out the "boy moms" and the ways that mothers reinforce the patriarchy and make excuses for their son's behavior. I'm also seeing a lot of mothers who have boys who are having conversations with their sons about this matter and how they are incorporating practices into their parenting so their son doesn't end up becoming a misogynist or someone who would assault someone/ get assaulted. Speaking of boys getting assaulted, I'm also seeing a lot of good discourse about Greek life as a whole and the psychological impacts of hazing that results in normalizing awful shit. I also see some men who are talking about their experiences with sexual assault, their experiences with Greek life and how it selects for people who are weird and psychologically vulnerable to mold them into monsters, and the way that this also translates into homophobia. But I don't see enough fathers joining the discussion around this matter. And I think that's telling. Don't get me wrong, I get that social media tends to skew towards more female creators so that bias already exists. I'm sure that some people are having these conversations IRL and just aren't posting about it (my boyfriend included since he just doesn't have social media). But, I still think the silence is telling because a lot of fathers are part of the problem in the way they perpetuate fucked up ideals about masculinity and consent or they don't have nearly as much of an active role in their kid's life to teach them these sort of things. Then there are other adults who are just, for a lack of a better way of putting it, emotionally and socially illiterate. They might be generally functioning in society but they are incredibly stunted, lack introspection, and just plain don't know how to deal with a multitude of issues if a child came up to them. I put my parents in this category. I look back in my childhood and I think that there were some very obvious symptoms of my poor mental health. And it's not that I don't think my parents didn't notice at all. It's more of they saw the signs and they didn't know how to connect the dots, put two and two together, and realize that their child is suffering from depression and anxiety due to a strained relationship they build with their kid and how they raised the kid in a dysfunctional marriage. They just wrote me off as lazy, as antisocial, and as "the problem child." And thank god I never got sexually assaulted as a kid. Even if I acted out and showed textbook symptoms of the assault, I don't think they would be able to put two and two together and get me the help I need. Hell, given some things my parents have said to me in the past, I'm pretty sure they would have blamed me or claimed that I was lying instead of understanding how sexual abuse works. I would categorize things like not understanding how to communicate in a healthy way, not knowing how to resolve conflicts, not knowing how to identify and share emotions and regulate them, not knowing how to open up to create closeness, not knowing how to build a relationship, misusing therapy terms to weaponize them, all fall under the umbrella of being emotionally illiterate. I would also include not being able to introspect and understand how certain parenting tactics can lead to long term harm and shaping your children in a bad way as also part of being emotionally illiterate. Overall, I think being emotionally illiterate comes down to not knowing how to identify, cope with, or communicate emotions in a healthy way and how to build relationships where people feel heard and understood. I would categorize things like not knowing how sexual assault works, not knowing how teen pregnancies work, not knowing how to handle gay relationships, not knowing how to handle people from different cultures, not knowing how trauma and mental health isssues work, not knowing how eating disorders work, and not know how being neurodivergent works as being under the umbrella of being socially illiterate. I would say being socially illiterate has to do with not understanding broader social issues, how they can manifest in your personal life/ community, and how to interpersonally navigate such things. Like you cannot take something like *sexual assault is bad* and see how various mindsets can lead to someone becoming a rapist and how they originate in the way that we treat one another or raise our kids. You can love your kids and still be emotionally and socially illiterate. My parents are an example of that. There are situations where they mean well but they just poorly handly situations left and right because they don't have the skills to emotionally deal with things nor do they have the social skills to effectively address what's going on. And I think a lot of parents fall into either of these umbrellas based on what I'm seeing with the people among my peers who choose to have kids as well as the result of the types of people we have in our world today. These days, I find myself looking back at various situations in my life where I probably needed some kind of comfort or guidance from my adult figures and even though I have dealt with said issues effectively, I still think it's fucked up the ways the adults around me either failed me or set me up to fail. There are a lot of old people on this earth, but there aren't a lot of people who are elders or safe adults you can go to. I wrote about this before in the post below: And it's crazy as I'm moving into my mid-late 20s and I'm observing the early stages of people's dysfunctional marriages. I remember seeing a statistic when I was a teenager about how 50% of marriages end in divorce. At the time, that stat freaked me out because the whole thing felt like it was up to chance and I could be part of that 50%. Now that I'm in my mid-20s and I'm going to some of these weddings, I'm sitting at the table thinking *yup.... I know who that 50% is.* If anything, I hope the stat is higher because some of these relationships are ratchet as hell. And I think as a kid, you see how these relationships turn out in 10-15 years time because you're observing your parents from the standpoint of your childhood rather than observing them from the beginning of their relationship (because you simply didn't exist at the time or you were a baby who couldn't process anything). But it's freaky to see your own peers getting into their own dysfunctional dynamics and being able to think *yup, I can see how this can fuck up a kid in the future.* Going back to the preventative measures to ensure your kid doesn't end up becomeing like the Cornell 57; it baffles me how parents of rapists are like sitting there looking surprised when shit like this happens. I know a guy who is a few years younger than me in my broader community who got kicked out of university after he assaulted someone. I remember when he was in middle school, he did not understand what was and wasn't appropriate and he made a lot of other girls his age uncomfortable. I remember when this kid was in elementary school, he straight up bit another kid and left bite marks. His mom laughed it off like a little jokey joke and said "oh, poor baby was just a little hungry." And the parents at the time were like "Lady, you're crazy. That's an 8 year old boy capable of using his words, not a wild tiger." Even outside of parenting, the parents in this situation were also questionable individuals morally even though they were relatively well off and well educated. I don't know much about the dynamic between the parents, but I'm sure there is some dysfunction there as well. I know I talked a lot about general misconceptions around sexual assault, the various social factors from childhood that can become a breeding ground for things like the Cornell 57, the ways that the way that people parent, their social/ emotional skills, and their overall relationship can factor into things like this. But even if you control for a lot of these things, your kid can still get assaulted becaus other parents didn't do what they were supposed to do. I think in the state of New York, the law that says that even if you consented to taking drugs, if you engage in consensual sexual activity afterwards, it's still legal. And I think on an institutional level, that law is bullshit. I get that it's supposed to refer to things like *if you had a couple of beers and then had sex, that's not rape* but I think in practice, this section of the law can be weaponized to discredit victims of sexual assault like Jane Doe in this situation. At the same time, even in the case of having a couple of beers and having sex, I think we need to have a higher standard for what is considered consent to decrease the number of ambiguous situations. We need to normalize clear, blatant communication. That's not possible if both of you guys are under the influence. And I think a reason why a lot of people don't want to have proper explicit conversations, is due to things like purity culture which is a whole nother can of worms to unpack. Do I think having drunk sex is inherently rape? Not necessarily. But I do think it can fall under the umbrella of nonconsensual consent. Other examples of nonconsensual consent include: rape fantasies having a safe word so that you can say no in sex and still have it to play into a fantasy without it being an actual violation of consent having sex when you're half awake or waking someone up with a sexual act having sex while on drugs like weed or psychedelics engaging in bdsm in a way that would otherwise prevent you from explicitly communicating (i.e. being gagged so you can't talk, being tied up so you cannot physically communicate/ get a way, being choked etc. And I think all of these fall under the umbrella of kink so it's kind of seen as a fringe sexual practice. But the thing we can learn from this is how in situations like this, before people engage in these practices, they have very clear and explicit conversations if they are doing this in a healthy way. There are parallels between these things and having drunk sex even though the later is much more normalized in society. I was taught that in order to have sex, you need to have FRIES. That means that consent is Freely given, Reversable, Informed, Enthusiastic, and in a Safe environment. Being drunk and not having a conversation before hand disqualifies you from giving informed consent. Hell, you can't even sign contracts if you're drunk and have them be valid. So why are we treating sex in a different way? And of course, in order to handle situations regarding sexual assault effectively, it's important to believe the victim. It's very rare that people lie about things like this. It takes a lot of courage to open up about things like this because of the amount of trauma that is there, the stigma associated with victims of sexual assault, and the victim blaming. In addition to believing the victim, I think in order to do that, it's important to know how sexaul assualt works. I wrote about this earlier but it goes along with how most victims knew their assaulter before hand, that people don't typically get raped by randos in back alleyways, that the victim misremembering things is not an indication of them lying rather it's a symptom of the trauma itself, and how consent works. Like, it's crazy to me seeing how many people are trying to justify this rape by saying "oh, she's freaked out, she wanted a threesome" as if she consented to 7 men having sex with her for 8 hours straight or how people are calling her a "ket whore" and saying she brought this on to herself because she was doing drugs and she was at a frat house at 2 am. I can also understand the sentiment of wanting to protect women and trying to find ways to take control of the situation so that it could have been prevented. It's a way to try to cope with what happened. But that can turn into victim blaming so you want to be very careful about that. Hell, this is another reason why victims don't come forward, why they internalize what happened to them and blame themselves, or it takes them a while to realize what happened to them was not alright. Like I get the knee jerk reaction to not want to go out at night or to cover up, never have sex, and hide your daughters, but that's often a very reactionary take. Because women deserve to walk alone at night, wear what they want, socialize with friends at 2 am, and explore their sexuality without having the threat of gang rape hanging over their heads. Not to mention in societies where this does get implemented, they tend to have a bigger issues with rape because we're blaming victims instead of holding their perpetrators accountable. In conclusion, horrific acts like this doesn't happen in a vacuum and it's due to a culmination of personal and societal factors. And as a result, it's so important for people who could be seen as a trusted adult to be the type of person that puts preventative measures in place and also knows how to handle such cases effectively when things like this occur.

It Takes a Village to Raise A Rapist I have been following the case with the Cornell 57 (I know a lot of people call them the Cornell 7 because 7 of the men were part of the gang rape but the group chat had like 57 people). It's a horrifying case and as a woman, I do feel impacted emotionally by the sentiments that are being shared. I have been feeling a sense of depression and hypervigilence wash over me this past week. I can't say that it's debilitating or that I'm surprised. Men are capable of committing some heinous acts. I also think that my educational background in Human Rights makes me better equipped to handle such things emotionally because I basically spent 4 years studying the worst aspects of humanity. That's where I'm at emotionally. Intellectually, as a way to make sense of something like this, I catch myself wondering how something like this could occur in the first place and how someone could think that this kind of behavior is acceptable. I also catch myself trying to make sense of other people's reactionary views around this as well and the general sense of emotional literacy some people have. Because I'm at a stage of life where I'm really thinking about the prospect of being a parent, I find myself thinking what I would do if I had a child who was gang raped like this or what I would do if my child turned out to be a rapist (and how to prevent something like this). I think what happened to Jane Doe was horrific. I remember reading an account where she was doing the ketamine hoping it would knock her out so that there would be more of a basis and a case that this was indeed rape that can be held in court as opposed to coersion that might not yield to imprisonment. It wasn't just a drug fueled orgy. I read accounts of her trying to get away and pushing people away as they made their advances towards her but not being able to fight them off because she was so heavily drugged. I read accounts of her initially consenting to a threesome but also, it's questionable if she wanted it or if she was talked into it after she was drugged up. But even if she wanted a threesome, that doesn't give consent to having 7 other people involved. And then there is all the ways that the school adminsitration and the justice system failed her. The whole thing about the university having the rapists write a fucking essay about what happened is infuriating and makes light of the situation. The way that the rapists still got their degrees from a prestigious institution while the victim couldn't even finish college because of the trauma is tragic. The way that people are trying to dox the victim or downplay what she went through is horrifying. The ways that people are slut shaming her, saying that she's lying, or victim blaming her is abhorrent and appalling. The only thing that seems a bit promising is that at least from what I gathered, her parents are supportive of her and are trying to get justice for her. I know damn well that if I was in this situation, I wouldn't be able to go to my parents for something like this. And that feels scary and depressing on a personal level. As for the boys involved, the leaked messages were absolutely disgusting. The way they referred to her as "free pussy" and the way that one of the guys was like "you can just whip your dick out" or "shop still open" was dehumanizing and nauseating. And all of these boys came from relatively well off families and look like normal people you encounter. This is why I hate the narrative that a rapist is some weirdo in a back alleyway. Most of the time, it's a relatively normal looking person you know or have considered a friend. And sexual assault isn't always something like gang raped or being raped at knife point. Most of the time, it's that guy who is being really clingy and is guilt tripping your for not putting out. It's the guy that gets a little to handsy and because he's like twice your size, you think it's easier to go along with it. It's a guy who cannot take no for an answer and instead sees it as a negotiation point. It's the guy who gets you drunk enough to where you let your guard down and you agree to things you otherwise wouldn't have agreed to. It's the girl who you cannot fight off because she's significantly smaller so any amount of self defense is going to make you look like the agressor. It's the girl who was your baby sitter or your teacher who groomed you and then when they made sexual advances towards you, people congradulated you for losing your virginity at 12 to an older chick. It's the girl who ignores your no's or takes you lack of advances personally because of the notion that all men want it all the time. It's the girl who flashes herself at a concert and throws her underwear at a performer while saying vulgar things. Like another thing that pisses me off is how people assume that women cannot be abusers or rapists or that they cannot be a part of the problem as well. Men can also get sexually assaulted and women are also capable of doing fucked up things. The Ghislaine Maxwells of the world exist and there were women in part of the university administration who were also part of the problem. The Cornell 57 case is one of the more egregious versions of this. The more subtle stuff that I listed above happens all the time. And because it' s more subtle, a lot of people don't realize how wrong it was or what kind of trauma it caused until much later. I think this adds to how people don't realize how common sexual assault is. It also yields them to make excuses for victims because they don't want to come to terms with how widespread of an issue this is. Because acknowledging that a lot of drunk sexual encounters, a lot of ambiguous circumstances, a lot of pressure falls under the umbrella of assault is hard to admit as the perpetrator because you don't want to think of yourself as the creep in the back alley way and it's hard to admit as the victim because that means sitting with the gravity of the situation and any difficult emotions that may come up. A lot of people still end up dating their rapist and convince themselves that what happened was okay because they cannot cope with the trauma or the rapist emotionally manipulated them to downplay what actually happened. Even in the Cornell 57 case, one of the guys contacted Jane Doe and asked if "they were still good?" That wasn't them trying to make amends with her, that was them trying to avoid responsibility and morally justify their heinous acts to themselves. Then there is the typical ways that victims of sexual assault tend to act ranging from having a spotty memory, having their brain block certain things out, and again, being in denial of the severity of the case and as a result, not coming out with charges until much later. And I think a lot of sexual assault issues needs to be addressed at the level of prevention as opposed to handling them in court (that also needs to be addressed, but more on that later). Yes, consent education is good in the university level, especially when it comes to the normalization of more subtle / ambiguous circumstances. However, the most heinous people who are capable of doing shit like getting someone hooked on ketamine so that they can gang rape them are not going to attend such discussions. They will think that shit is stupid and go about their day. The Cornell 7 and the 57 men in the group chat didn't get to where they were due to some innocent misinformation. They were likely enabled all their lives to where, by the time they go to university age, it's too late to employ an intervention to change their behaviors and world views. It's start as early as telling little girls on the playground that if a boy is being agressive towards you, that means they like you. It starts as early as letting your boys be rowdy and agressive instead of correcting that behavior at the root. It starts as early as coddling your son and saying your little boy is "just a little misunderstood" wheras you would never use that term with a little girl who was acting out. It starts with little boys growing into their middle school age without any proper role models so they default to Andrew Tate or whatever the fuck is going on in the media and how society portrays masculinity. It starts with telling children of both genders that they should ignore their personal boundaries and hug / kiss any older relative even if they aren't comfortable with that. It starts with telling children to blindly follow authority which then ends up priming them to accept abuse later on in life. It starts with not educating your kids of both genders the difference of appropriate and inappropriate touch. It starts with your kid getting sexually assaulted or groomed by some adult in the family or community and you not handling that shit properly whether that is you accuse your kid of lying, you continuously bring their abuser around them, you reprimend them for acting out their trauma, you not getting them a mental health professional, or you say it's some how their fault because they must have made a move towards the perpetrator. Ultimately, all of the things above that could have been addressed to create prevention measures against raising rapists or victims boil down to neglect; whether that be regarding how you don't discipline your kids, how you don't pay attention to your kids and what they are watching, and how you don't teach you kids what is right and wrong in terms of the way that they are supposed to treat others or how they are supposed to treat them. And unfortunately, I don't think a lot of parents pay attention the above enough because they aren't introspective enough to address their own biases and how it might impact their parenting nor do they observe their surroundings to learn about how situations like this can occur. Thankfully, as I'm following the discussions of the Cornell 57 case, I see a lot of women calling out the "boy moms" and the ways that mothers reinforce the patriarchy and make excuses for their son's behavior. I'm also seeing a lot of mothers who have boys who are having conversations with their sons about this matter and how they are incorporating practices into their parenting so their son doesn't end up becoming a misogynist or someone who would assault someone/ get assaulted. Speaking of boys getting assaulted, I'm also seeing a lot of good discourse about Greek life as a whole and the psychological impacts of hazing that results in normalizing awful shit. I also see some men who are talking about their experiences with sexual assault, their experiences with Greek life and how it selects for people who are weird and psychologically vulnerable to mold them into monsters, and the way that this also translates into homophobia. But I don't see enough fathers joining the discussion around this matter. And I think that's telling. Don't get me wrong, I get that social media tends to skew towards more female creators so that bias already exists. I'm sure that some people are having these conversations IRL and just aren't posting about it (my boyfriend included since he just doesn't have social media). But, I still think the silence is telling because a lot of fathers are part of the problem in the way they perpetuate fucked up ideals about masculinity and consent or they don't have nearly as much of an active role in their kid's life to teach them these sort of things. Then there are other adults who are just, for a lack of a better way of putting it, emotionally and socially illiterate. They might be generally functioning in society but they are incredibly stunted, lack introspection, and just plain don't know how to deal with a multitude of issues if a child came up to them. I put my parents in this category. I look back in my childhood and I think that there were some very obvious symptoms of my poor mental health. And it's not that I don't think my parents didn't notice at all. It's more of they saw the signs and they didn't know how to connect the dots, put two and two together, and realize that their child is suffering from depression and anxiety due to a strained relationship they build with their kid and how they raised the kid in a dysfunctional marriage. They just wrote me off as lazy, as antisocial, and as "the problem child." And thank god I never got sexually assaulted as a kid. Even if I acted out and showed textbook symptoms of the assault, I don't think they would be able to put two and two together and get me the help I need. Hell, given some things my parents have said to me in the past, I'm pretty sure they would have blamed me or claimed that I was lying instead of understanding how sexual abuse works. I would categorize things like not understanding how to communicate in a healthy way, not knowing how to resolve conflicts, not knowing how to identify and share emotions and regulate them, not knowing how to open up to create closeness, not knowing how to build a relationship, misusing therapy terms to weaponize them, all fall under the umbrella of being emotionally illiterate. I would also include not being able to introspect and understand how certain parenting tactics can lead to long term harm and shaping your children in a bad way as also part of being emotionally illiterate. Overall, I think being emotionally illiterate comes down to not knowing how to identify, cope with, or communicate emotions in a healthy way and how to build relationships where people feel heard and understood. I would categorize things like not knowing how sexual assault works, not knowing how teen pregnancies work, not knowing how to handle gay relationships, not knowing how to handle people from different cultures, not knowing how trauma and mental health isssues work, not knowing how eating disorders work, and not know how being neurodivergent works as being under the umbrella of being socially illiterate. I would say being socially illiterate has to do with not understanding broader social issues, how they can manifest in your personal life/ community, and how to interpersonally navigate such things. Like you cannot take something like *sexual assault is bad* and see how various mindsets can lead to someone becoming a rapist and how they originate in the way that we treat one another or raise our kids. You can love your kids and still be emotionally and socially illiterate. My parents are an example of that. There are situations where they mean well but they just poorly handly situations left and right because they don't have the skills to emotionally deal with things nor do they have the social skills to effectively address what's going on. And I think a lot of parents fall into either of these umbrellas based on what I'm seeing with the people among my peers who choose to have kids as well as the result of the types of people we have in our world today. These days, I find myself looking back at various situations in my life where I probably needed some kind of comfort or guidance from my adult figures and even though I have dealt with said issues effectively, I still think it's fucked up the ways the adults around me either failed me or set me up to fail. There are a lot of old people on this earth, but there aren't a lot of people who are elders or safe adults you can go to. I wrote about this before in the post below: And it's crazy as I'm moving into my mid-late 20s and I'm observing the early stages of people's dysfunctional marriages. I remember seeing a statistic when I was a teenager about how 50% of marriages end in divorce. At the time, that stat freaked me out because the whole thing felt like it was up to chance and I could be part of that 50%. Now that I'm in my mid-20s and I'm going to some of these weddings, I'm sitting at the table thinking *yup.... I know who that 50% is.* If anything, I hope the stat is higher because some of these relationships are ratchet as hell. And I think as a kid, you see how these relationships turn out in 10-15 years time because you're observing your parents from the standpoint of your childhood rather than observing them from the beginning of their relationship (because you simply didn't exist at the time or you were a baby who couldn't process anything). But it's freaky to see your own peers getting into their own dysfunctional dynamics and being able to think *yup, I can see how this can fuck up a kid in the future.* Going back to the preventative measures to ensure your kid doesn't end up becomeing like the Cornell 57; it baffles me how parents of rapists are like sitting there looking surprised when shit like this happens. I know a guy who is a few years younger than me in my broader community who got kicked out of university after he assaulted someone. I remember when he was in middle school, he did not understand what was and wasn't appropriate and he made a lot of other girls his age uncomfortable. I remember when this kid was in elementary school, he straight up bit another kid and left bite marks. His mom laughed it off like a little jokey joke and said "oh, poor baby was just a little hungry." And the parents at the time were like "Lady, you're crazy. That's an 8 year old boy capable of using his words, not a wild tiger." Even outside of parenting, the parents in this situation were also questionable individuals morally even though they were relatively well off and well educated. I don't know much about the dynamic between the parents, but I'm sure there is some dysfunction there as well. I know I talked a lot about general misconceptions around sexual assault, the various social factors from childhood that can become a breeding ground for things like the Cornell 57, the ways that the way that people parent, their social/ emotional skills, and their overall relationship can factor into things like this. But even if you control for a lot of these things, your kid can still get assaulted becaus other parents didn't do what they were supposed to do. I think in the state of New York, the law that says that even if you consented to taking drugs, if you engage in consensual sexual activity afterwards, it's still legal. And I think on an institutional level, that law is bullshit. I get that it's supposed to refer to things like *if you had a couple of beers and then had sex, that's not rape* but I think in practice, this section of the law can be weaponized to discredit victims of sexual assault like Jane Doe in this situation. At the same time, even in the case of having a couple of beers and having sex, I think we need to have a higher standard for what is considered consent to decrease the number of ambiguous situations. We need to normalize clear, blatant communication. That's not possible if both of you guys are under the influence. And I think a reason why a lot of people don't want to have proper explicit conversations, is due to things like purity culture which is a whole nother can of worms to unpack. Do I think having drunk sex is inherently rape? Not necessarily. But I do think it can fall under the umbrella of nonconsensual consent. Other examples of nonconsensual consent include: rape fantasies having a safe word so that you can say no in sex and still have it to play into a fantasy without it being an actual violation of consent having sex when you're half awake or waking someone up with a sexual act having sex while on drugs like weed or psychedelics engaging in bdsm in a way that would otherwise prevent you from explicitly communicating (i.e. being gagged so you can't talk, being tied up so you cannot physically communicate/ get a way, being choked etc. And I think all of these fall under the umbrella of kink so it's kind of seen as a fringe sexual practice. But the thing we can learn from this is how in situations like this, before people engage in these practices, they have very clear and explicit conversations if they are doing this in a healthy way. There are parallels between these things and having drunk sex even though the later is much more normalized in society. I was taught that in order to have sex, you need to have FRIES. That means that consent is Freely given, Reversable, Informed, Enthusiastic, and in a Safe environment. Being drunk and not having a conversation before hand disqualifies you from giving informed consent. Hell, you can't even sign contracts if you're drunk and have them be valid. So why are we treating sex in a different way? And of course, in order to handle situations regarding sexual assault effectively, it's important to believe the victim. It's very rare that people lie about things like this. It takes a lot of courage to open up about things like this because of the amount of trauma that is there, the stigma associated with victims of sexual assault, and the victim blaming. In addition to believing the victim, I think in order to do that, it's important to know how sexaul assualt works. I wrote about this earlier but it goes along with how most victims knew their assaulter before hand, that people don't typically get raped by randos in back alleyways, that the victim misremembering things is not an indication of them lying rather it's a symptom of the trauma itself, and how consent works. Like, it's crazy to me seeing how many people are trying to justify this rape by saying "oh, she's freaked out, she wanted a threesome" as if she consented to 7 men having sex with her for 8 hours straight or how people are calling her a "ket whore" and saying she brought this on to herself because she was doing drugs and she was at a frat house at 2 am. I can also understand the sentiment of wanting to protect women and trying to find ways to take control of the situation so that it could have been prevented. It's a way to try to cope with what happened. But that can turn into victim blaming so you want to be very careful about that. Hell, this is another reason why victims don't come forward, why they internalize what happened to them and blame themselves, or it takes them a while to realize what happened to them was not alright. Like I get the knee jerk reaction to not want to go out at night or to cover up, never have sex, and hide your daughters, but that's often a very reactionary take. Because women deserve to walk alone at night, wear what they want, socialize with friends at 2 am, and explore their sexuality without having the threat of gang rape hanging over their heads. Not to mention in societies where this does get implemented, they tend to have a bigger issues with rape because we're blaming victims instead of holding their perpetrators accountable. In conclusion, horrific acts like this doesn't happen in a vacuum and it's due to a culmination of personal and societal factors. And as a result, it's so important for people who could be seen as a trusted adult to be the type of person that puts preventative measures in place and also knows how to handle such cases effectively when things like this occur.

People are Actually Stupid I saw this tiktok earlier this morning and I find myself relating to this. "College naturally filters out certain types of stupidity so as a result, a college idiot and a real idiot are not the same in the same way the NBA filters by talent so it's like you have you NBA failure who is not the same as the YMCA hoop run failure. I was playing Hell Divers 2 when I met my first real idiot and when I say it was a shocking conversation, it was almost if I was at the zoo. The guy was an Indiana worker talking about how the "Fidels" are willing to work with a hard hat on their head and a flash light in the middle of the night and how he didn't want to do that because he wanted to go home with his kids and play video games. Then he said that the NFL went 'sissy woke' once they started doing Black Lives Matter protests. Meanwhile I asked him what he meant and he didn't have the words for that. I never met anyone like that in college. Now I met really racist people in college. I've met really disgusting people in college. I've met people in college who are the scum of the earth. But they can all read. I've met people out here who if I were to give them a Harry Potter book, it would sound like ...___....____.... like someone put a swtich on a gun. I think a lot of you guys are not in the South. That's the issue. When you deal with some of these communities that are really REALLY rural and you have more Confederate flags than you have teeth, and you start dealing with a real idiot, yeah that's an experience." I found myself thinking about R and some of my other coworkers as well as some of the clients I have to deal with. And genuinely, I don't know how some people function or navigate this world. Like I know I'm not the smartest tool in the shed. I didn't go to the best university and I wasn't exactly at the top of my class. But I'm definitely not smart enough to have this many people stupider than me. I keep having to remind myself that the people I went to high school with who couldn't read during pop corn reading and the people who had to type in 9+8 into a calculator because they cannot do mental math still exist and they didn't just disappear after we graduated. That archetype of person exists out in the wild and now, they're just your client who cannot follow basic instructions even after you have laid it out step by step with screenshots and big red arrows telling them what to do. I remember watching Leo's content and hearing him talk about how the vast majority of people are incredibly unconscious, dumb, selfish etc. And I thought it was incredibly misanthropic. I still do think it's a misanthropic mindset and I don't think carrying on this world view that everyone is stupid and awful is helpful in terms of engaging with and connecting with people in a healthy way. But my god... sometimes I look around and I'm like *are you fucking for real... you're grown, you should know better.* I'm genuinely baffled sometimes. I feel like I have been exposed to crazy people before. But I think given my education both in college and before then, I was sheltered from straight up stupidity. Like why are you 57 years old and you're falling for conspiracy theories?!?!?! Why are you in your 30s and you don't know how to be friends with people of the opposite sex without being creepy about it? Why do y'all struggle with basic contraception and how birth control works? WHY TF ARE 40% OF PREGNANCIES UNPLANNED???? Why are so many people just straight up losers smh... I feel like my development has been like this: Age 16-19: People are really fucking stupid. Age 19-24: People are actually really complex and there are a multitudes of reasons as to why they act the way they do. Age 25 to now: People are stupid and it's due to a number of factors. But people are still really fucking stupid in the end of the day. Other than the friendship stuff, this has been another difficult thing for me to come to terms with in adulthood. I have grown and changed considerably over the years becuase I am curious about the world around me and I introspect so that I can have a deeper experience with myself and the world around me to take everything in while I'm still around. And to me, that's my baseline. That's my normal. But apparently, it's not typical and some people either consider me a genius or a sage. I'm not having and existential crisis and overthinking things. Quite frankly, most of y'all are underthinking things or you're not thinking at all, and that's the problem. I also find myself thinking this in the context of my parents and just parents in general. I would say that there are degrees in which you can fail as a parent, kind of how there are grades in school. I would say a parenting score of 0 is like your parents sold you to Jeffrey Epstein and a parenting score of 100 is like god tier, Mr. Rodgers level parenting. I wouldn't say that my parents are massive fuck ups. I've heard stories of parents wanting to marry off their young daughters, parents who had CPS called on them, parents who abuse drugs, parents who raised their kids in an environment with abusers, parents who don't teach their sons shit and then those sons turn into menaces in society, etc. I would rate my mom as a 64 (so a D-) and my dad as a 78 (C+). Like my mom did just enough to not be a piss poor parent, but she most definitely didn't pass with flying colors and I cannot have a relationship with her in my adulthood. My dad is good enough to where I can have a relationship with him as an adult, but there is definitely some straining that is in that relationship and various boundaries I have had to employ in order to have this relationship not devolve. And unfortunately, I think even though by dad got a 78, that's still a lot better than a lot of dads I have heard of. I feel like my boyfriend is one of the few people in my life who I'm close to that had decent parents. I would say that his parents give me B parenting (like an 83-86 ish). Like they weren't perfect parents, there are some ways that they messed up, and in someways they aren't super tight knit. But they still managed to raise a well adjusted adult who doesn't need to go to therapy every week and who has a relationship with their parents. I think a lot of my friends also have parents in the C+ to B range where their relationships aren't flawless but it's not so bad to where they want to go no contact. And that sometimes makes me feel crazy because I have a D parent and whie she's not a complete failure (where it's a for sure *you need to cut your parents off* situation), I also don't think I can have a constructive relationship with her without it coming at the cost of my mental health. But for me, as I'm trying to decide whether or not to be a parent, I feel like unless I'm able to get an A or A+, I don't want to be a parent. Like, not even an A- is sufficient. And I'm not saying this to be perfectionistic or hold myself to an unrealistic standard. I'm saying this to say that I take parenting very seriously. And I find it appalling that people don't hold themselves to a high standard. Like not gonna lie, there are many instances where I look at my parents and I think *that's some loser behavior/ mentality right there.* And get this.... they aren't even close to being the worst. If anything, there are situations where people (mainly teachers) have said they are exceptional and attentive parents (especially in the context of my education). And from my perspective of my childhood, I can point to like 10 different ways that they have neglected me. So if even with all of that considered they still come off as attentive parents... wtaf are these teachers dealing with in school when they talk to parents??? What kind of blatant dumbassery are they dealing with to make my parents seem like a couple of saints? The reason why I bring up parenting is that in addition to me being shocked at the number of stupid people I have to deal with, I then proceed to have an existential crisis because these stupid people are also bringing kids into the world and traumatizing the fuck out of them. Don't get me wrong, I do think that in a broader scale, things are getting better and parents are getting more educated. There are plenty of people who are trying to heal from their issues and stop generational trauma. But there are a lot of people who just continue that shit or hell.... they create new issues to pass on to their kids. And as a result, I don't think that any one generation is going to be responsible for as a whole being less dumb or being better parents. Not to toot my own horn, but times like this makes me feel very lonely as a stage yellow/ green person. Hell, I think people who are high orange and green feel the same way as well. Like some issues seem so obvious to us and as a result, it seems so obvious on how to deal with the short comings. I think having spiral dynamics as a model is pretty grounding in that it makes me feel less crazy when I'm faced with the blindspots of others and it also helps me make sense of what my own blindspots are as well. I can understand why people end up this way and what factors cause them to get to a certain sprial stage and stay there. I can also parse out the healthy and unhealthy versions of each of the stages and what we can learn from them. At the same time, I do think that the stages can be annoying to deal with and I catch myself face palming every time I see one of those dumb videos about people regreting to vote for Donald Trump because something Trump did finally affected them. But then they forget and vote for that same man again like 4 years later. Like I know damn well that in a few decades, all of these people and the historians are going to talk about Trump like he's some kind of master manipulator and charismatic leader that everyone ended up under the spell of. They're going to paint the adminstration as if they are scary and competent like they did with the Nazis. In reality both the Trump administration as well as the Nazis were stupid, incoherent, and hopped on a lot of drugs that completely fried their brain. And then, I'm going to have to sit with this in my 70s, looking around all the people who swore they never did anything to support that man or that they were under some kind of trance when they supported that man, and think *no, some of y'all were actually just dumb and now you're in denial.*

How it feels knowing that R is in a relationship with a stalker wannabe trad wife and he's having a shit ton of financial issues of his own making. Meanwhile, you're financially stable, in a healthy relationship, and your partner isn't a bum. The shit I have been finding about this man and his love life..... Like how crazy do you have to be to make R sound like the sane one lmaaooo!!! Why are you putting me in the position to defend that man! Honestly... they deserve each other because what the actual fuck.

People Are Weird About Only Children I don't know whether or not I want to be a mother but I know that if I decide to be a mother, I'm only having one child. I don't want to go through preganancy and the baby phase multiple times. I'm only pushing a watermelon out my pussy once in my life and that's it lol. But even when I say that, even though I'm not even saying I want to be a mother for sure, people still side eye me. They're just like *oh but who will your kid play with?* or *your kid needs the character development of having a sibling* or *your kid is going to turn out weird.* And then that's when I look that person straight in the eyes and say "I'm an only child," and then they shut the fuck up. There is a weird stigma with being an only. Some common stereotypes include how only children are spoiled, can't share, are socially awkward due to a lack of socialization, lonely, entitled, lacking in conflict resolution, or attention hungry. And a lot of them have been debunked, especially the notion that only children are some how deficient in terms of socialization and other developmental milestones. Turns out, that perspective originates in the 1800s when most kids were homeschooled, the nearest family was like a mile away, and you would go into town like once a week. But in the modern day, even an only child gets plenty of socialization just by going to school and interacting with other kids their age there (so yes, they do learn to share, they aren't lonely by default, and the can develop conflict resolution skills with their peers lol). As far as the attention hungry aspect goes, I think there is this notion that only children are accustomed to being the center of attention all the time. First of all, that's usually false. There's a tiktok that explains it perfectly and it's shown in the video below from 12:02 to 15:17. The video overall is pretty good but I want to highlight this specific thing: I feel like I fall into this category of *if I choose to be a mother, I wouldn't want my entire life to center around children and I want to still be a formed person outside of motherhood* I wrote about this in a previous post: And yes, I went to a lot of events that mainly centered adults. ranging from tagging along with my parents at their work place, to going to various social events where my parents had friends who had kids but they were all like 15 years older than me. My family also travelled quite a bit as I grew up and we never went to places like Great Wolf Lodge, waterparks, themeparks etc. I only remember going to Disney World once when I was 6 with another family friend who was an only child as well and it was our two familes on this trip together. All the other trips would be like going to the Grand Canyon, visiting New York, going to Gettysburg, going to Mount Rushmore etc. And yes, people with siblings always seemed a bit feral to me. Like I would go to their houses and everything would be sticky, the house would have toys and junk everywhere, and dishes were always piled up. The environment always felt a bit chaotic, but depending on the family, not necessarily dysfunctional. Especially when I would see siblings fight, that always felt awkward for me and tbh, it still feels a bit weird because how is some behaviour considered unacceptable or even abusive when it's coming from other people, but then when that's coming from your sibling, you scream at each other and then get ice cream 5 minutes later?? I know that if I did even 10% of that with a friend, I would be cut off immediately. Also, I think it's telling that in all the episodes of Supernanny, they only feature familes with multiple kids because they tend to be more chaotic and feral. Also, I think it's telling that Jo Frost, Supernanny herself, is child free lol. Going back to the claim of only children being attention hungry, I always felt that it was the opposite. I feel like you're more likely to be attention hungry if you see attention as scarce and like it's something to compete for. I feel like if your needs are met, you're not going to further continue exert yourself to be at the center of attention. A lot of the most attention hungry people I know are usually siblings who were neglected and then that adds to their sense of feralness. On a similar note, I felt like I didn't have a problem with sharing as a kid mainly because when I would share, I was always sharing willingly rather than out of obligation or because another kid was going to snatch something from me. if anything, I liked being able to share because that meant As for your parents having lives and other commitments, that's another thing that I related to. My dad was self employed. My parents were also taking care of elderly relatives. So as a result, again, it wasn't always about me. They were adults who had other shit going on. Then there is the whole claim of only children being lonely. And don't get me wrong, I did go through a phase of wanting a sibling when I was a little kid. But I eventually grew out of it. Plus, I always had friends in school so that stopped me from being lonely. I also think that when you have siblings, it's harder to put yourself in the shoes of an only child. My mom is the middle child and as a result, never knew a life without siblings. And I remember she would sometimes watch me play by myself and project a sense of lonliness to me. My dad on the other hand, was the youngest sibling with quite a big age gap with his siblings so as a result, he kind of had an only child experience in his childhood. And when my mom would look at me lik *omg my kid is so lonely, this is so sad* my dad would just jump in and be like *she's fine, she's just chilling in her own world* which was true lol. I also feel like a lot of people who have a significant age gap with their siblings to be like these *honorary only child of sorts* because even though they had the same parents, they often got very different versions of those parents and they don't share the same childhood. My dad for example has a brother who is 8 years older than him and a sister who is 11 years older than him. Once he was like 10, both of his siblings moved out. Before then, it's not like he played with his siblings or really spent much time with them. He didn't get the perks of having siblings until he was an adult. I also listened to this podcast of this lady who said that rather than saying she has 3 kids, she says that she has 3 only childs. She had the first kid at 21, the second kid at 33, and the third kid at 46. And each kid had a very different version of her and a very different upbringing / lifestyle. I can see the whole only children being more lonely in adulthood thing because it's harder to maintain a social life after you leave the school environment and a lot of people default to their immediate family as their community instead of seeking out community. At the same time, even in those situations, I think it's only a problem if the only child in question is coming from a dysfunctional family or parents who aren't healthy. I think only children can become very close to their parents if they are healthy. I can see my boyfriend as a good example of this. However, if the household is unhealthy, then you're kind of fucked (like me). But I don't blame my situation on a lack of having siblings. I blame my situation on my parents not being good parents. My parents also do this thing about blaming my problems on not having siblings instead of taking responsibility on the ways they have contributed to this situation. Like yes, my hypothetical, non-existent sibling is the reason why I'm traumatized smh. If anything, I feel grateful that I don't have any siblings because of my dysfunctional family. I feel like if I had a sibling, there would be no gurantee that we would get along or bond over this shared experience of a fucked up childhood. Yes, I have seen situations where siblings stick together, but I have also seen plenty of situations where siblings end up being part of the problem and each person handles trauma very differently. Or the parents, since they already have a toxic dynamic, put that toxic dynamic onto the siblings as well. Some examples can including: parentifying the oldest kid to where they have resentment/ take it out on the younger siblings one sibling being the favorite golden child and another sibling being the scapegoat to the family's problems pitting siblings against each other boy moms favoring their sons and reinforcing patriarchial doublestandards on their daughters some siblings being completely neglected when they're struggling quietly while the other sibling is more outwardly crashing out so the chaotic sibling gets help but the other ones don't parents never correcting problematic behavior with some kids and then that kid creates a toxic dynamic with their sibling Even if the parents aren't dysfunctional, there are other reasons why siblings might not get along including: a sibling falls into addiction or an abusive relationship for reasons outside of the family's dynamics, the siblings just not really clicking or vibing like that so they're more like roommates who share the same parents some siblings getting along well but one sibling is just a little weird and doesn't relate to the others for whatever reason so they're like the black sheep (I know so many siblings who probably wouldn't talk to each other if they weren't related). political issues or difference in values / morals So the whole *siblings are built in friends* bit always felt overly idealistic and just not a good reason to have multiple kids. There's nothing wrong with having multiple kids (more on that in a little bit), but make sure you're doing it for the right reasons. And I think as I grew up and I got to know my parents more, I didn't see siblings as a sure fire way to solve all my problems and have a good life. I'm pretty sure that given the way that my mom treated me, if I had a sister, we would be pitted against each other, and if I had a brother, she would be the boy mom final boss. And even if that wasn't the exact case, I think having more kids in my family would create more complications in the family dynamics and the types of trauma that were present. If anything, I'm glad I don't have siblings because that means they don't have to deal with the bs of my family. Then there is the arguement of how once the parents pass away or they have to care of their parents in their elder years, the only child is left completely alone to bear the burden. And I think this is another thing that lacks nuance. Again, there is no gurantee that the siblings are going to be close first of all. Secondly, each of the siblings can experience grief very differently based on their relationship to the parent. Thirdly, while it is ideal that all the siblings pitch in someway to care for the aging parents, often times one sibling ends up getting most of burden due to various life circumstances. I have seen all three of these situations play out with my own parents who have siblings. As a result, I don't romanticize the notion of having siblings nor am I putting an expectation to myself to have more than one kid if I do decide to be a parent. I've also been recently innundated with a number of posts of people being sad about being an only child. And I cannot relate to a lot of it. Don't get me wrong, I do feel a sense of lonliness and I think there are some cons to being an only child. But I don't think having siblings is the solution. A lot of the shitty experiences around being an only child often root back to the overall family or parents in some way. Usually, the problem is child neglect rather than the kid not having siblings. So when these posts have comments like "this is why if I have kids I'm having multiple" I just find myself cringing because it doesn't seem like it's coming from the healthiest of places and because it often feels like that person is misdiagnosing the problem at hand. There is also a lot of factors that I can see leading people to decide to only have one kid including the following: A traumatic or complicated pregnancy Miscarriages Health issues Not having the funds to properly provide for multiple kids Single parenthood Realizing that while you can provide for multiple kids, their over all quality of life (and your quality of life) would be compromised severely In my opinion, a kid needs stable, healthy parents, a college fund, and family trips more than a sibling. Knowing your limits and what you can handle as a parent In my case, I'd rather be an amazing parent to one kid than a mediocre parent to multiple kids. Timing (usually having a kid earlier or later in life) Or hell, people have one kid and a few years later they realize that rather than trying for another one, the 3 of them feel like a complete family. So the whole question of *when are you gonna give your kid a sibling* feels rather inappropriate because you don't always know what the other person is dealing with. Like for all you know, they wanted to have multiple kids but some of the pregnancies ended in miscarriages and you just asked a dick question.

Children as Property I have been educating myself on parenting and I have come across the concept of childism and how children are a marginalized group in society. I know one way that women and people of color deal with when it comes to discrimination is being infantilized. Or in other words, being treated like a child. And don't get me wrong, I do think it's a legitimate form of dehumanization, but then I asked myself, what does it say about how we treat children if being treated like a child is a bad thing? I started reading about childism and a lot of bad parenting or fucked up reasons to have kids can factor into childism or childist thoughts. The one that I want to talk about today is this notion of treating children as property. Other marginalized groups like women and people of color have been thought of as property quite literally throughout history. And I think there is a subset of people who literally see their child as property, but I think there are more people that subconsciously see children as property and have adjacent thoughts about it. 1. People who see their children as an extension of themselves: These kids aren't allowed to be their own person or a human being. I feel like a chunk of people that say they're having a kid because they want a "mini me" falls into this category. The kid's successes are their parents’ successes. Their failures are their parents’ failures. The parents can also take things waay too personally to where any feedback on the child's actions can cause them to feel attacked as parents or they're overly concerned with their family's reputation. They also start treating the kid badly the moment the kid wants to do their own thing by expressing their independence or self-expression. This can range from being upset when their child decides to get a haircut, they don't like all the way to their child deciding they don't want to go to Harvard med school (enter the Disney Channel trope of *I'm not giving up on my dream. I'm giving up on YOURS. *) It can also look like an inability to accept your kid having a different opinion than you, an inability to accept your kid being gay, or having a VERY specific idea of what you want your child to turn out as. I don't think there is anything wrong with wanting to instill certain values to your kid to where you would be concerned if they came out with a concerning world view (i.e. raising your kid in an accepting home but for whatever reason they get poisoned by Andrew Tate and the manosophere), or you are disappointed with how unempathetic your kid came out. But, depending on what your expectation of the kid is, it some instances, it can take an objectifying turn. Hell, there are some parents who have very strict expectations of what they want their kids to look like beyond the kids' stylistic choices of hair, makeup, and clothes. Of the top of my head, I think of the weirdos who fetishize having mixed babies, the weirdos who take out their body image issues on their kids, the weird short women who have a complex around being small so they mate with a man who is 6'5" and 250 lbs and then they're shocked that their daughter isn't as petite as them, or the weirdos who are protective over their kid's blond hair because they're closeted white supremacist. I have met people like this and those are the examples I can think of off the top of my head. There are many examples of how this can turn out which I think will show up in the following points. 2. People who see their kid as a retirement plan: I feel like this is common in immigrant family circles or people who grew up poor. And I think it often leads to those kids becoming impoverished themselves when they're older because they have so many other people to take care of to the point where they cannot build their own savings. And don't get me wrong, I don't think there is anything wrong with adult children who decide to help out their families. But I do think it should be their choice rather than an expectation. I also think that the subset of parents who see their kid as a potential retirement plan often tends to either push the kids too hard growing up to the point where they leave some kind of overachieving trauma, OR they had bad financial planning going into having children from the first place. I'm not trying to drag people who are in a lower socioeconomic status. I realize that there are also situations where people did financially prepare for parenthood but then for whatever reason their families ended up poor anyway. But there are also a lot of people who either neglect financial planning, have babies by accident, or they raise these kids when they themselves were already personally struggling. And then these people will look at you and say *well there is no perfect time to be a parent. * And yeah, I agree, there is no perfect time to become a parent since parenthood can be incredibly inconvenient. It's not good to become a parent in your 20s because you're still figuring out your life. It's not good to have a kid in your 30s because you may have additional responsibilities with your family or a career. It's not a good idea to have a kid in your 40s and beyond due to health reasons or because of a lack of energy. But there are definitely better and worse times to have a kid and my thing is, why tf would you have a kid in a bad situation when parenthood is already hard enough as it is? Why would you make parenthood harder than it needs to be by bringing a baby into a struggling situation? Sure, I'm talking about the financial responsibilities before you have a kid. But I think that also extends into taking financial responsibilities as you parent as well. Like I don't think it's good to burden your adult child if you didn't prepare for retirement and you didn't put anything into a 401k or a Roth IRA. I don't think it's a good idea to not save money in case of medical issues. And sure, it's good to have enough money to ensure that you can cover the expenses of having a baby and feeding, clothing, and providing shelter for the next 18 years. But I think that's the bare minimum and it isn't enough. If you can do that but the margins are so thin to where you cannot plan for saving for the kid's college, you can't plan for your own retirement, or accommodate other emergencies, then having kids might not be financially viable for you. 3. People who see their kid as their legacy: Like sir, you are not in Succession or an episode of The Crown. You are a regular, everyday civilian... act like it. No but for real, I think this also ties back to seeing your kid as an extension of you. I feel like it be the bummiest of people who talk about their kids being their legacy because they didn't build anything other than a family and the only time, they heard the word "congratulations" in their life was when they got pregnant. There are so many examples of people that I can think of who have a legacy, but they don't have a kid OR they have kids, but no one knows who those kids are / they don't think of their kids. The best example I can think of is Dolly Parton. And I think this goes along with the notion of kids bringing you fulfillment. Don't get me wrong, I can see how being a parent can be a fulfilling endeavor, but I don't think it should be the only form of fulfillment in someone’s life or even the biggest. And I think a lot of parents have trouble wrapping their head around that concept to where they look at you crazy when you say you don't want to have a kid. Then there is the whole thing about again, how the kid is their own person. Upbringing does matter a lot, but your kid isn't going to be a carbon copy of your opinions, morals, and lifestyle. So as a result, I don't think your kid can really be your legacy because of how much variability there is solely in how they can be their own person. 4. Some people have a kid because they want to "mold a life": I wrote about this before. It's weird and kind of controlling. I think it makes more sense and seems healthier to want to guide someone as opposed to going into the experience with the intention to mold. Again, this isn't everyone but I feel like there are a lot of narcissists that insist on having kids (and a lot of them) because they like the idea of molding someone into their own image and also having absolute control over a baby that has no agency and has to depend on you for everything. People love to call child free people selfish, but a lot of selfish people are parents too and once they become parents, they don't magically turn selfless. Instead, their selfishness is then extended on to their kids to where they don't give a fuck about other people's kids so long as their kids is taken care of. 5.The whole concept of "having a kid" instead of "being a parent": I noticed as I was writing in my journal that everyone loves to ask, "do you want to have kids" instead of asking "do you want to be a parent." And I think on a societal level, that is very telling and this is what inspired me to write entry in the first place. There is more of an emphasis on acquiring a kid like they are an object as opposed to whether or not someone wants parenthood as a role or lifestyle choice. And ever since I had this realization, I have been monitoring my language in this journal but also in my real life when this subject comes up. There are lot of people who want to have kids, but they don't care about being a parent. They want a cute little baby or an adorable toddler, but they don't care to read to that child every night. They don't want to pick them up and drop them off from school every day. They don't sit down with the kid as they do homework. They don't care to fulfill the responsibilities of parenthood and the way that parenthood structures their lives is incompatible with the kind of life they want to build for themselves. Because at the end of the day, they saw the kid as a cute little accessory to have an image of a perfect life, or they saw having a kid as a box to check off rather than a role and set of responsibilities they are signing up for a lifetime. And I think for me personally, I have always tried to frame it as "do I want to be a parent?" instead of "do I want to have a kid?" as I'm introspecting my desires around parenthood and what it actually takes to be a good parent. And even on a biological level, I never had the desire to get pregnant. I'm fine if my life turns out in such a way to where even if I don't have my own biological parent, I end up being a stepparent or a foster parent, or hell, just any trusted adult in a child's life. 6. Then there are the creeps who have a kid and sexually abuse them: This is pretty dark and I wouldn't say it's as common as the previous reasons I have listed. But I think any sexual exploitation fundamentally comes down to people not seeing the other person as human due to objectification to where they violate their consent, their bodily autonomy/ safety, and their overall wellbeing. And I think children fall into this as well because you're literally objectifying them. That same objectification routes back into seeing children not as their own person but as property. 7. There are also the weirdos that don't understand the concept of privacy when it comes to their own kids: This can range from sharing the child's personal information like a jokey joke to their friends and family, taking the door off their kid's bedroom because *it's my house, my rules*, reading your kid's diary, or being weird about them keeping secrets in general. I think there is some grey area here and there to where if you think your kid is doing something questionable and you need to get more information (i.e. you found out your kid is doing drugs and you tried to have a conversation about it but haven't been able to get information, you're going through your kid's phone to monitor their internet usage regarding what content they are consuming, or your kid is keeping secrets because they got sexually assaulted.). I'm not talking about monitoring your kid when it comes to safety precautions at an age-appropriate manner. But generally speaking, I think a lot of parents who are big on the *no privacy* rule either have really bad, unchecked anxiety OR they are power tripping. And I think the latter points back to reason number one which is seeing their kid as an extension of themselves. 8. The Right Wing "Parent's Rights" Movement: There is a subset of people in the right wing who advocate for "parent's right" and a lot of it comes down to things like homeschooling their kids in religious fundamental households with no supervision from the state, book bans, fear mongering about trans people and gender affirming care, dismantling child labor laws, and trying to dismantle CPS. A lot of the ideology comes from the notion that children are property and that they can be molded, beaten into submission, and heard like an animal for their uses. I feel like this really parallels the way that these people view other marginalized groups throughout history. I found a pretty good article summarizing the Parent's Rights Movement and it goes into more detail than what I have written here: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/04/children-are-not-property.html 9. Some adults have a messed-up sense of respect: I think the word "respect" often means one of two things. It refers to people seeing it as a standard of treatment that is baseline for people to treat them as human beings. Or the word refers to a sense of authority and deference. So, when some people (especially adults to children) "if you don't respect me, then I won't respect you" they're basically saying "if you don't treat me as an authority, I won't treat you as a person." I feel like a lot of adults don't treat kids with basic human respect, but they expect kids to have this sort of blind obedience towards them and every time a kid acts out in an age-appropriate way, they lash out at the kid and take everything personally. I think there is already a huge power dynamic between adults and kids since adults are bigger, have more life experience, have more money and autonomy etc. while kids are developmentally vulnerable and are dependent on the adults around them. And the way that some people have a fucked-up attitude around respect really just doubles down on that power dynamic.

In Theory But Not In Practice I sometimes feel like I'm a whore in theory but not in practice. I'm pretty in tune with my sexuality and carry no shame around it. I think part of it is because of how much I have introspected on these matters. I tend to gravitate towards really sexually suggestive music. I would say in a lot of ways I'm more open minded than the average person when it comes to sex. That isn't better or worse, but it is what it is. I'm very in touch with my body and general sense of sensuality. I'm pretty comunicative when it comes to sex whether it's just talking about it with friends or explaining what I do and don't like when I'm in the act with my partner. But then I get nerfed because I have a low sex drive so even though I live with my partner, we usually have sex once a week or once every other week. And also, I kinda hate most people. So the thought of having sex with a lot of people doesn't really appeal to me. Even if I want that experience, I look around and I'm like *eww. no thanks.* It's also kind of like how I like dating in theory rather than in pratice. The thought of meeting new people, doing exciting things for dates, getting to know different parts of yourself and understanding people's experiences, and just in general exploring your world, the other person's world, and incurring more life experience, all sound amazing. But then you go into the dating pool and you realize a lot of people kind suck, some people are crazy and it feels like there is a lot of them because they're making their rounds traumatizing people left and right while the chill people are in the corner minding their business, and the dinner and coffee dates get repetitive after you have answered *what's your favorite color* for the 100th time. I feel like sex is the same way. Even if I were to open my relationship up tomorrow, I don't think I would readily find someone fuck worthy who also wants to fuck me right away. Also, if I'm going to be slut, I don't want abandon my ethics, standards, or sense of responsibility. Like I would 100% ask them about their political beliefs, ask for an STD test, and would request to talk to their partner if they're also in an open relationship. I'm not trying to fuck a Nazi, catch a mystery disease, or be a homewrecker. I also still stand by this. And I think all of these things deter me from having a high body count. Not to say that people with a high body count lack a sense of morality or a sense of responsibility. Because again, I think it's possible to be an ethical slut lol. It's just that these are the factors for me personally that have contributed to the current state of my sex life.

Taking Ls I have been thinking about L again a lot lately. I thought about him a lot prior to meeting my current partner. Then, I didn't think about him until the summer of 2025 when I started unpacking my nihilistic tendencies and got off birth control so my sex drive was all over the place. And now, I'm thinking about him again. So then, I found myself reflecting on what my current fantasies mean and how my fantasies around L has evolved over the years. I would say that in the beginning when I first met L, I thought he was pretty attractive romantically and he a lot of traits that I thought was admirable. He kind of reminded me of a better version of myself and I liked his over all personality. He also seemed really put together but I think a lot of that is my 19 year old brain observing a regular man in his early 30s at work lol. I go into more detail about it in this post I wrote years ago. The attraction started off romantic and later turned into sexual attraction. The post above goes into more detail about the conditions as to why I was simping for a man a decade older than me. And I remember a lot of the fantasies I had at the time regarding wanting an older man had to do with wanting to experience a sense of gentleness, stability, and this desire to be guided. All of those things were elements that were missing from my life. I remember having more of a reassurance kink around this time lol. I think a lot of it came from a lack of sexual and romantic experience. I had a lot of trad-wife esq fantasies around this time too. I wrote about this back then as well: I think the association of stability and gentleness I had with and older age faded away after certain things in life fell into line for me. I know the fantasy of being provided for died for sure once I was making enough money to afford my desired lifestyle and have a sense of stability. Then, in 2025 when I started thinking about L again, it wasn't linked to romance or his personality at all, it felt purely physical since he fulfills a lot of preferences I have and I had a large increase in my overall sex drive for a number of factors. Like my fantasies featured L as a figment of my imagination and a pretty face to make fake scenarios in my head as I fell asleep rather than being a representation of him as a full person. Now, I think my fantasies around L had come back around to the more psychological side where I have certain fantasies because of what I'm going through. I think I like the idea of getting with an older man in a position of authority who knows what he's doing, who is more assertive so that I don't always have to initiate and I don't have to doubt how he feels about me. This coincides with how I feel like I don't know what I'm doing and how I feel like I have to be assertive in every other area of my life but especially my friendships. I also associate this fantasy with embracing my sense of shyness which contrasts with the sense of assertiveness described above. I'm not nearly as inexperienced romantically/ sexually as I was back in 2020, but I still feel rather inexperienced in my age group. I'm not used to romantic attention. Sure I'm in a romantic relationship right now but my experience with my current boyfriend feels like an exception rather than the norm. So because I'm not used to it, it's something that catches me off guard and leaves me easily flustered. And as someone approaching 27 years old, it feels a bit embarrassing and juvenile to admit. I feel like I have a lot of other areas of my life that I confidently navigate but I still struggling bringing that energy sexually or romantically. Like part of me wants an older more experienced person to see this and rather seeing this as something awkward, immature, and weird, that they see it as something genuine, innocent, and endearing. As far as how this ties in with the factors of age and authority, I think there is an appeal to someone who knows what romantic desire looks like recognizes something in me that I haven't learned to recognize in myself yet. I think this ties in to issues around how I'm unpacking the elements of neglect and how I wasn't able to develop a sense of confidence in the way a lot of people do. I think this also translates to seeing myself as desirable and not seeing my desire as something to hide away rather it's something to be witnessed and appreciated by another person.

Reflecting on My Sexual Bucket List I have been going through this journal and I came across this post and wanted to reflect a little bit. The desires in red are ones that I no longer care about. The desires in green are ones I still want to experience. And the desires in blue are the ones I have tried.

More Friendship Grief I would put this under the Processing Negative Feelings journal but I wanted to put it here because I put my friendship related journal entries here typically. I talked about the grief before and I wrote about it. I'm still going to include it here since it provides important context: I would say much of what I have written in these posts have subsided. I'm not in denial of all the ways that the landscape has changed in adult life. I'm still experiencing the anger I described here but more so in the form of saddness (more on that later). The self deprecation is there sometimes but less so. And I'm moving towards more acceptance over time. But over the past month or so, I found myself feeling a new wave of grief specifically about what I have written about this post: I'm having difficulty with accepting that my relationships are more shallow now because I still have deep feelings of love and care for my friends. I'm hesitant to have certain conversations with them because I don't know if they care in the same way or if they fully moved on. And that also makes me feel kind of pathetic and tossed aside. Like a big reason why I don't reach out is because I feel like a creepy man in people's DMs since I'm the main one initiating. And I don't want to add icing to the cake with a "what are we" conversation. Yes, I'm laughing and that's a joke, but I'm also dead serious. I'm scared of this being our dynamic: I had 3 events that triggered this new wave of grief. 1. I had a friend (friend 1) reach out to me after a while. I was overjoyed when I saw that she wanted to see me. I was thinking that we can finally talk about what's been going on in her life and mine. Then, I realized that the invite was for the whole family and it was for her brother's birthday. That bummed me out quite a bit and it made me think *oh, she's reaching out of family obligation since our families know each other and it's a family get together.* But I tried to remain positive and thought that it would still be nice to see her. I get to her house and everyone is just talking in a group setting. They talked about car racing, Fifa, going to Japan, and other more lighthearted topics. Which is fine, but also, it's not really how I connect with people. Personally, I don't really connect with people on shared hobbies since my hobbies and interests are more niche and I've always been like a weird kid growing up. But I would make up for that by having an active interest in people's lives. And I remember sitting in that conversation and contributing a little here and there but feeling like I have no clue who anyone is or what's going on with them and they have no clue who I am either. That felt isolating. I finally had a moment to talk to my friend. It was just a 15 minute conversation and I'm glad I got know a little about what's going on with her. But, I still felt sad because it still felt very surface level, like we were having this conversation in passing. And right when we were probably gonna get deeper into talking, my parents were like *ok let's we gotta get home.* And not gonna lie, that crushed me. I was going to offer to hang out later in the month but as we were talking, she mentioned she was going to be quite busy in the weeks ahead so I didn't bother. 2. I had another friend (friend 2) reach out for some kind of family religious thing at her house. I pulled up and we started talking about our lives. Then, the moment I was about to open up about some things that were going on to stray from the rosy picture of my life, her mom came in and said that it's time for us to go and do the religious ceremony. The dang ceremony lasted nearly 3 hours. And afterwards, we got food and started talking. Of course we started off light. My other friend from situation 1 was there as well. And again, the moment that we had the chance to go deeper into the conversation, it was time for us to go. There was another thing in that conversation that kind of annoyed me. We were talking about homeownership and settling down and it felt clear that my other two friends and I had very different goals and values for what kind of future we wanted to build for ourselves. It's not like they said anything bad, but I guess it hurt because I realized that I probably cannot build a life with these people. Maybe we could have explored each other's perspectives more to where we wouldn't feel so misunderstood but the conversation didn't have a chance to develop into something deeper. Like I'm not opposed people wanting a different life than me. But I think it stings because I feel kind of isolated in my vision for settling down in Dallas specifically since I don't aspire to a surburban life. 3. Then, I reached out to friend 2 asking if we can hang out sometime that week again before she leaves for college. I just wanted to have a deeper conversation with her. She said that she can't but then she invited me out to go dancing at this club. I went ahead and I said yes. Sure it sucks that I can't have a real conversation, but at least we were making memories. I do appreciate how both of these friends still incorporated me into their lives to where we have shared experiences. I know being in this loop of catch up friendships can be tiring itself without having new shared experiences balance things out. I pull up and sure I had some fun, but I ended the night feeling really sad and empty which turned into me spiraling in the next couple weeks. Even at the club. I was enjoying myself but then half way through I felt a wave of grief wash over me. It felt like these once really close relationships just devolved into superficial party friends where we barely know each other. I felt like a glorified acquaintence since I didn't know the internal workings of anyone anymore. And they didn't know me either. I wish I could talk about this with them but I'm scared that I'm going to be painted as being ungrateful because they still managed to squeeze me into a schedule that is booked out by 3 months at all times. I feel like they moved on without me or that they only tolerate me in a group setting and they don't care to know what else is happening in my life nor do they care about sharing on their end either. I also get a weird feeling that they're all hanging out without me and that unless I reach out, they would never include me into things independent of family or religious events. Like I feel like I'm not being actively chosen, only being tolerated. At the same time, I do know some factors in their lives that make them genuinely busy so I'm not taking it super personally. I don't see this busyness as a personal problem in either side of our relationship. Instead, I see this busyness as a systemic problem affecting us personally (see the first linked post in this entry). So I'm not blaming myself or them. I can also understand if they're all hanging out without me because I don't have much surface level things in common with them. And I know friend 1 specifically said that rather than talking about what's going on in her life, she needs a distraction or hobbies that stop her from ruminating since her job is mainly centered around constantly dealing with heavy matters. Maybe she sees her friends as better suited to help her through this tough time over me. And that's fine. I know I have gone through some things where I thought certain people in my life are better equipped to handling and I didn't see other people who I didn't go to as lesser. I just wish I had my own people I can also go to. But yeah, I was hit with this new sense of grief where I feel like no one knows me, I don't know any one, and I don't have the opportunities to engage with people on a deeper level without it coming off as intense and just simply not right for the setting. I feel like my needs for connection aren't being met and that sometimes makes me doubt where I'm at in people's lives. Like I feel like a couple years ago I was at a place of *ok I'll give people space and I'm sure they'll come back, they just need to deal with some things.* Then I checked back and I see that they have found other people and essentially moved on and I'm still here reserving a spot for them in my life. And I'm happy for them for finding people to help them through these difficult times and I'm glad they found their people. But I'm sad for me because I'm still just by myself and I have yet to meet people like that. Don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly waiting and twiddling my thumbs. I have been trying to put myself out there and make new friends organically but I have yet to find success. So I'm just left with this void. And not to be corny (I don't even like Taylor Swift tbh), but I feel like those lyrics where she's like *and then everybody moved on. Help. I'm still at the restaurant.* Friends break up, friends get married Strangers get born, strangers get buried Trends change, rumors fly through new skies But I'm right where you left me Matches burn after the other Pages turn and stick to each other Wages earned and lessons learned But I, I'm right where you left me Help, I'm still at the restaurant Still sitting in a corner I haunt Cross-legged in the dim light They say, "What a sad sight" I, I swear you could hear a hair pin drop Right when I felt the moment stop Glass shattered on the white cloth Everybody moved on I, I stayed there Dust collected on my pinned-up hair They expected me to find somewhere Some perspective, but I sat and stared I wrote about this more a few weeks ago: Then there is the trauma from the friend breakup. Like genuinely FUCK THAT PERSON and the way that they handled that situation. I was never the type of person to assume that everyone secretly hates me until after that break up. That situation hit me out of nowhere and there was no explicit conversation to help mend things. I just saw them getting distant but I initially wrote it off as *they're busy with xyz and dealing with some heavy stuff right now* and I was giving them space to sort that out without being over bearing. But then after that situation I started thing *maybe they were building up resentment and moving away from me for a while and they were making up excuses.* And I know better than to also apply that same dynamic to other people who are not related to this situation at all but it does make me wonder where I stand with people. Like I don't think most adults are openly confrontational when they don't like someone unless you're seeing them on a regular basis. I feel like most adult who don't like you will tolerate you in a social setting to be cordial and the not initiate in making plans afterwards to slowly phase you out. And because of the trauma of this situation, I don't know if my other friends are trying to slowly phase me out as well and I'm just the dumbass who still cares. And the frustrating thing about me trying to deal with friendship in adulthood is that I feel like I have been journalling and contemplating this for years now and I feel like I haven't made much progress. The more I learn about friendship in adulthood, the more lost and confused I find myself. I'm sure I'll look back on this and be like *well, I did eventually figure things out and now I have a beautiful life with great friends and I found my people* because everything eventually works out. It often just takes longer than anticipated. But right now, I find it difficult to believe that things will get better. Like I don't want much. I just wish people would hit me up every couple months and ask me how I'm doing and give me the space to talk about things the same way I would give them space to talk about their lives in detail. It's not like I'm here expecting everyone drop everything for me and hang out everyday. I'm not blowing up people's phone with a million calls and text messages. I'm not asking for constant reassurance. But I'm still human and I still need SOME reassurance since I feel like I'm navigating a lot of ambiguity. People also think I'm secretive but that's not the case. They just don't ask. And because they don't ask, even though I want to share, I feel like I don't have their consent to open up and I don't want to trauma dump on them. Tbh, they probably don't ask because they don't want to be intrusive so I'm not holding too much against them for not reading my mind lol. People also think I'm deep and intense but I think I have a different base line of what a "heart to heart conversation" even is because I'm in a constant state of existential crisis. So while they feel filled up by seeing me and having a surface level interaction at a party, I'm here feeling more disconnected than ever. I also think this wave of grief is also hitting me hard because I'm also unpacking a lot of symptoms of childhood emotional neglect right now. I also feel gross about my life and my body because it doesn't feel like it's in alignment with

I dread having a wedding in this stage in my life When people ask, I usually say that I would elope because I would much rather spend the amount of money that would go towards a wedding towards a house, travel, preparing to have a kid, or really any other financial goals. This isn't a lie but if you're looking for a deeper answer it would be: My family has a lot of issues and I don't think I can be myself around them so the thought of them being there for my wedding fills me with dread. I don't have enough friends to justify having a wedding and I for sure wouldn't have any bridesmaids. I feel like my small wedding wouldn't look close, intimate, and intentional and would instead look kind of pathetic and embarrassing. I think it would highlight the lonliness I already feel consumed by. I was never someone's best friend. In most cases, I was always a tier 2 or tier 3 friend at best. Wedding dress shopping fills me with anxiety because I don't think I'm all that pretty. Often times, when I dress up for special occasions, I don't feel like a pretty girl rather I feel like an ugly girl trying to cosplay as pretty. I also feel like weddings often put pressure on women to be the hottest, most beautiful version of themselves and I feel like that pressure would cause me to freak out and relapse into all types of unhealthy habits and mindsets because of my body dysmorphia. The thought of being the center of attention and having a day be all about me freaks me out. It's a symptom of the emotional neglect I have experienced to where I'm not used to being witnessed and celebrated so now, it feels scary and uncomfortable. I like to think having a wedding wouldn't feel scary once I heal from my neglect wounds, my body image issues, and I have more friends with deeper connections.

My Plan to Address Things: I'm learning more about childhood emotional neglect. I feel like the symptoms I have listed out don't cleanly match the common symptoms I'm reading about. I think part of it might be because I have put in a lot of work in therapy and in reflecting to where I have healed a lot of adjacent issues. For example, I have a mostly secure attachment style after doing the work. Before, I used to be a mix of anxious and avoidant attachment (usually leaning more avoidant). And me leaning more avoidant makes sense due to the neglect. By learning to be more emotionally available toward my own needs, by becoming more aware of my emotions, by learning what my emotions were trying to say, by identifying my needs and how to communicate them, I did heal a layer of the trauma of emotional neglect. Another example is me dealing with my issues around hyper independence to where I had trouble openning up to people, had trouble asking for help, and feeling like I had to have my life figured out at a young age. I no longer struggle with this. I also think my degree of introspection and my strong sense of values and self-respect camoflauged a lot of the issues I had around my confidence. So again, a lot of the self-esteem issues associated with emotional neglect was also missing since I had the self-respect wing make up for what my confidence was lacking. I haven't had to deal with the issues mentioned previously in the last 5 years. So while I was aware of the emotional neglect, I healed enough to where the most common signs were no longer there. As a result, I think the deeper issues around neglect, the really developmental and ongoing stuff like developing a core of self esteem, having experience with being witnessed, social confidence, and feeling like your presance has an impact got buried even more because there was more healing in the surface. For instance, I don't think the sentiment of *I don't feel like a woman* or *I feel like a background character in my own life* is the first thing people think about when they think of emotional neglect lmaoo. I don't think that my emotional neglect is any less valid because I don't currently have the more classic symptoms. But I do feel like that can make traditional forms of treating emotional neglect seem redundant because I already did that. And sometimes I feel like seeing these forms of advice that I have already utilized makes my situation feel even more hopeless because it feels like such a deep set issue. Maybe this is something I need to continue working with a professional on who is aware of the nuances of my specific situation and how this is showing up. At the same time, I went ahead and jotted down some ideas on how to address each of the manifestions of my neglect. 1. Not having a solid core of self esteem Each day, note down 3 things that you are proud of yourself for and focus on the effort and character traits associated with them: This is different from affirmations because I'm not just repeating the same few statements over and over again each day. That tends to not register at all. Sure, there may be some overlap on a day to day basis and that's good because it's reinforcing the message, but the point it to be a witness and acknowledge your achievements, even if it's something small and you don't think it's worth noting down. It can be something like *I'm proud that I did the dishes because I was anxious about it and even though I didn't feel like it, I still pushed through it and now I feel better over all* I think priming myself to complimenting myself will make me more emotionally receptive to other people complimenting me to where I actually believe it on an emotional level. 2. Feeling like your presence doesn't leave an impact Take note when people feel your absense or remember something about you: It can be oh hey, this person cares about me enough to check up on me. Or it can be *hey since, I didn't show up in work today, I didn't do xyz that would have been beneficial to the team (but not in a self deprecating way rather in a, your presence adds something way)* Expose yourself to situations where you are compelled to take up more space: You're already mindful, do little things here and there that your brain says you're dominating or being attention seeking but are actually completely normal. Tell people it's your birthday. Talk about your weekend in more length. Speak up more in larger group settings. Take more of an exposure therapy approach to feeling more comfortable with having a presance. 3. Feeling discomfort with being witnessed: Celebrate yourself in small ways (like noting down things you're proud of daily) and work your way up: You don't have to throw a party for yourself right now if you don't feel like it but you can work up to it. Get out of the habit of downplaying your achievments. Continue allowing someone to be physically present as you're dealing with big feelings: I'm currently living with my boyfriend and that has brought to light just how much I was neglected when I was living with family and it's been helpful having him by my side to be my witness and accept me even if I might not be my most emotionally attractive and charismatic self. 4. I always felt like a weird kid/ socially awkward even when I wasn't: Acknowledge that you're not socially awkward, weird, autistic etc. and that it's due to not being given a social script to begin with. You are starting a lot of stuff from scratch and you didn't have the same starting point as everyone else. That's not a deficiency on you. Sure, you might stumble more, but that's not a personal failing. And even some people who do have resources, they still struggle as well as they are also grappling with similar things you are. They still make mistakes as well as they learn about the complexities of adulthood even if they have guides they can fall back on. They have a head start, but they aren't somehow radically better than you.

Symptoms of Neglect A lot of this is going to be repetitive from what I wrote before but this is me just processing and organizing my thoughts in a different way. Not having a solid core of self esteem: I have difficulty with recognizing my positive qualities but it's super easy for me to recognize my flaws. As a result of me not being able to acknowledge my positive qualities, when something goes wrong, I internalize everything because my brain is conditioned to find/ focus on all the ways I might be messing up even if the situation at hand was largely out of my control or was due to factors outside of myself. Like even in a situation where 98% of it was the other person's fault, something systemic, etc, my brain zeros in on the 2%. Basically, I take too much responsibility for things and I down play my positive qualities / achievements. When people compliment me, it doesn't register in my brain. It's not that I don't believe it, but I don't feel anything positive. It's like I'm emotionally blind to the effects of a compliment in the same way someone might be color blind. It's like I know colors exist and I can differentiate some of it, but it doesn't really register. I still say thank you to people and I react positively, but that's less of a reflection of how I feel inside and more of me knowing how to socially behave. Like if someone says they think I'm pretty, I'm not going to sulk in the corner, be awkward, or deny it by saying *no I'm not.* I just say thank you, have a quick chat, and move on because I'm not socially weird. I have trouble asserting myself: This thankfully doesn't show up in situations of necessity (i.e people at work mistreating me or micromanaging me or giving me less money than I deserve OR in medical situations when the doctor is being unreasonable OR when I'm on a date with a guy who is disrespectful), but in optional situations like negotiating for a raise, making friends etc, I can be more passive. I think in situations of necessity, the main reason I can assert myself is because even though I don't have a lot of confidence, I do have a lot of self respect that comes from my values rather than how I feel about myself. I'm really good at playing defense, but I'm bad at playing offense. Feeling like your presence doesn't leave an impact I'm shocked when people say that they missed me or that they think of me. People finding me attractive catches me off guard. Like I've had crushes on people and I have thought of them and I'm sure statistically it's likely that someone has thought of me in that way but it just doesn't emotionally register as a possibility. The background character feeling Being in the spotlight or me being the main attention in a group of people feels weird. It can range from mild discomfort to full blown anxiety and wanting to avoid the situation as a whole. I feel mild discomfort if I'm speaking in a group of people in a social setting and everyone is listening to me. I don't like the feeling of me dominating a conversation and taking up space. Birthdays, besides all the other emotional baggage I have around it, also feel weird because *what do you mean I have a day that's all about me?* I don't judge other people who do this but the thought of announcing my birthday in the days leading up to it or me making a big deal about it, feel mortifying. Like I don't tell people about my birthday or really celebrate it. Also, I kind of dread the thought of me having a wedding and having all the eyes on me to the point where I just want to elope. Feeling discomfort with being witnessed: Being in the spotlight or me being the main attention in a group of people feels weird. It can range from mild discomfort to full blown anxiety and wanting to avoid the situation as a whole. I feel mild discomfort if I'm speaking in a group of people in a social setting and everyone is listening to me. I don't like the feeling of me dominating a conversation and taking up space. Birthdays, besides all the other emotional baggage I have around it, also feel weird because *what do you mean I have a day that's all about me?* I don't judge other people who do this but the thought of announcing my birthday in the days leading up to it or me making a big deal about it, feel mortifying. Like I don't tell people about my birthday or really celebrate it. Also, I kind of dread the thought of me having a wedding and having all the eyes on me to the point where I just want to elope. Celebrating myself gives me anxiety.I think this is a combination of #1, having trouble identifying my positive qualities and #2, feeling like my presance doesn't leave an impact, specifically on how being in the spotlight feels uncomfortable. Like whenever people talk about birthdays, weddings, celebrating milestones and people are like *don't you want a day where you feel special?* or *don't you want a day when it's all about you and you get all the attention?* it feels like a foreign concept to me. And honestly, it makes my skin crawl. Being emotionally vulnerable to where someone sees me cry, have panic attack, or having someone witness me at the heat of the moment feels weird and uncomfortable. Like I can open up about my life or negative feelings I'm dealing with but I mainly feel comfortable doing that when I'm in a place where I'm having a cohesive conversation. I'm not used to living with someone and having them see everything about me at the moment that I'm experiencing something. I always felt like a weird kid/ socially awkward even when I wasn't. It feels like people were given a social script and I was left to observe and improvise. I think it took me longer to get socialized properly due to my abusive home environment and because my parent's neglected a lot of things that would have helped me gain social skills to better mesh with my peers. Like they were kind of overprotective and sheltered me and this shows up as neglect because they didn't actually take the time to teach me. Some examples include not being allowed to go to sleepovers, not going off to summer camp, not having play dates, not having important conversations around sex and puberty, being isolated from your peers and not being allowed to hang out with friends or date, etc. And even though I'm not a super weird adult, I still feel socially awkward because I don't have parents to guide me through some of the more complex social dynamics in adulthood. I don't have someone to walk me through how to navigate office politics and how to build professional relationships. I don't have someone I can go to if I'm having dating issues. I don't have people I can go to regarding navigating the complexities of friendship in adulthood. And I know I definitely don't have parents I can lean on if I decide to be a parent myself. I don't feel like a woman: There aren't a lot of ways this actually manifests outside of me in the way I act but it's just a weird feeling I've always had.

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