fuckyeahblackwidow:

Here is the required post about the Avengers film, that Loki interrogation sequence, and themes of weakness, expectation, and vulnerability. When I say required, I mean that everybody else is. But I will soldier on bravely, just like every other person on the internet in love with their own opinion.

So, Natasha’s most constant recurring themes are themes of control. Comic books are vast and largely un-sum-up-able, but every character has central metaphors that shine through multiple arcs and adaptations, and I think questions of control, questions of agency, are a huge part of her equation. Duane Swierczynski is the current writer on Birds of Prey, but he also did a run on Black Widow, and this is something he had to say about it:

From the very beginning, she had no say in her own destiny, which is a very noir, very dark kind of outlook on life. And yet, she fought back from that and has now taken her own life in her own hands again. I guess I respond to those kinds of characters. Characters that seem screwed, who are also talented but are put in a difficult position and who fight their way out of it. That’s what appeals to me about her. Despite the convoluted, difficult life, she’s come out on top. And now her mission, the way I see it, is that she wants to free other people from being controlled and used. That’s her thing, I believe, and why she is equally super hero as she is a spy.

Natasha is someone whose specific skillset was forced upon her, something beyond her immediate control, but it’s also the only means she has to take her own life back.

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I never, ever, would have been able to explain so precisely why it is I feel such gut wrenching emotion over this character myself.

So thank you.
Thank you
Thank you
Thank you 

for writing this from the perspective you have. Really, thank you, and yes; you wrote it for your own reasons and I am adapting it to mine. Magic.    

I’ve told my family many times, as I’ve told the family lawyers many times; I. Don’t. Want. To. Know.

I don’t want to know. I don’t. I don’t care if you think it is information I’d want to know (EVEN THOUGH I have told you face to face and then through emails and over the phone that there is no information or circumstance that I want to be informed of) - still don’t tell me. I’ve decided it is dead and unfortunately that only works if everyone around goes along with me. Knowing it is dead is a key building block to my current ability to be who I am. 

So don’t fucking leave me a voice message staring out with a deep sigh and, “I know you’ve been very adamant about not being relayed information on the current status - ” NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. I deleted that shit before I heard anymore. Now I’m rage spiraling.

So thanks for that; I’m pretty sure I had some pretty explicit instructions that I don’t ever want to be directly contacted by you, so now I’ve got to talk to my parents and figure out what bullshit this is.  I am so angry. Angry because I knew the number and I knew I shouldn’t have listened but I did - which means I went along with breaking my own instructions and have once again caused myself grief. I’m blaming you but I ultimaitely am to blame, as it is my phone and my choice to check the message or not. 

But then I am angry because fuck you, you fuck. I hate you. 

Picked my hand so bad today I can no longer move my thumb. 

Auuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuug

I mean, don’t you want to get better?

People tend to assume that group therapy is helpful to all. I imagine group therapy must seem really different for those who are not a part of the group, so here is a aspect of group therapy non-group folks understand but never actually face:

The worst part about group therapy is the realization that you are not alone, that you are not a special case; the realization and that there are enough of you in which to constitute a group. 

Staring at a face that is not yours and sharing in a reality with them that neither of you want can fill some with an overpowering wave of despair.

“But doesn’t it help to know you’re not special, that it isn’t just you, that you’re not alone?” a screeching bus of non-groupies wail. 

No, not really.

I mean, eventually.

I mean, for some yes. For some initially for others later and for other others never.

For non-group people group therapy always seems to ring of positivity; a secret club; a space for motivation and sisterhood and emotional tutelage - and it can be and is that for some group folks. 

For others it is where you are rounded up and categorized to look directly into the eyes of an invisible monster.

I think non-group people should have group therapy to get better so there would be none of us group people. 

Because I’m not fucking sick. 

joshishollywood:

Was there some sort of meeting where they decided that you get to dictate someone else’s recovery method for emotional or physical suffering based on your own experience or that of someone you know or even just because

Who attended it

Were they all the sorts of people who think fedoras are a good idea too

(Source: badcgijosh, via slurpeees)

This is the first part in a long story of how a fictional character helped me; or more correctly how I helped myself through a fictional character, as that is what those of us who have done such a thing are really doing. 

I found Dana Katherine Scully while flipping through channels one night while my family watched FRIENDS in the living room. I’m not embarrassed to say the reason she caught my attention was because she possessed beauty and red hair (two things I’ve desperately always wanted). I was ten at the time and my family had just moved to the other side of the friggin’ world. I had started a new school and was in therapy and in the stupid kid classes and I was growing increasingly bitter and scared. Every day was terrifying, the future was terrifying, I was sedated with multiple pills and functioned in a haze those first few years after my molestation. Talking about it is difficult because I do not have memories of large chunks of time - which I’m alright with. I use to look back on this time and find it unnerving because I don’t remember much of it but now I’ve realized lots of people have a hard time remembering that far back in detail and frankly I don’t think I’m missing much. So fuck those memories, you know? I don’t need them. When I look back the one constant memory that sticks out to me now is my obsession with Dana Scully, and all things The X-Files.

Even though I was engaging in extracurricular activities (primarily soccer) I had a lot of spare time because I did not do my school work. I did not try or care about learning until middle school when I transferred to a small private school - who let me in mostly because they let my sister in and in all probability felt cruel rejecting me while accepting her even though my entrance scores were absolutely horrible. All of my spare time, all of it, was consumed with scouring the TV listings for X-Files reruns and making sure I was home for every single one of them. After my daily routine of waking up and checking the listings I’d spend a unhealthy (as a therapist will eventually tell me) amount of time thinking about what the night’s episodes would hold based just on their names and talking to Scully in my head as I went about my daily things. 

When I say “Talking to Scully in my head” I think most people know what I mean. You talk to the character, with them in mind, but obviously it is you answering yourself and amusing yourself in a one way conversation. Most people do this in some form or another - I did not have a Scully imaginary friend. This entirely insular space is where I found Scully helping me for the first time; through the mental facade of the character I found a new, strong, voice for myself. Again, this was not a imaginary friend or some kind of self-induced multiple personality thing - this was just a constant running dialogue with myself and “Scully” (which, hello, was me). 

The more I watched, the more I caught up with the series, the stronger and more defined the voice (my voice) became. Through talking with Scully I practiced day to day social interactions I feared.

But why Scully? What was it about this character that drew me to her? What is it about the character that made so many of us philes huddled at her feet in our youth? What causes so many of us to continue to cherish her even with the onslaught of new media we consume? Why does she stick out and above so many other characters, male and female, for those of us that love her? 

Of course I can’t answer for anyone but myself; but I do believe it has to do with respect. Not necessairly the respect the character receives within the show, but more of the respect we (I) the viewer place onto her.

Again, I can’t speak for anyone but me: I respect(ed) Dana Scully like she were a breathing living human being. My total and absolute respect for the character made her real to me, and then within me. What I found in Scully to be respected as a viewer began to help me find respect for myself. Which was something I did not have.

Going to the hospital after my molestation was one of the most terrifying and damaging things I have ever experienced. While there I had a panic attack that turned into a life threatening asthma attack. I vividly remember a nurse breaking down while helping the doctor trying to administer medicine to me. A traumatized young girl suffocating in front of her was probably not something the nurse had ever seen before and the doctor correctly dismissed her while she then alone injected something into my IV. I remember thinking I was going to die not because I wasn’t breathing but because I saw the nurse’s tears. Years later one of my therapists suggested that this event could be seen as the root of my self-image issues; something to do with seeing my existence validated through the reactions of others rather than my own actions. Or something like that, I don’t remember, I didn’t like her as a therapist very much but that one analysis remains fresh in my mind. 

Growing up I wanted all my teachers and my classmate’s parents and any adult to like me, which was a circle of disappointment as I did not do my school work and did not engage well socially and thus did not receive the already unobtainable level of praise I desired. I think I wanted to be liked in-spite of not doing what was required (either in school or within society), as I certainly never thought of changing my behavior to get what I wanted. I just wanted it. I’ve sought adoration and praise from authority figures most of my life and as a young girl I felt better watching someone as smart, beautiful, and successful as Scully crave the same thing. It is so simple and so small a thing to inspire hope and camaraderie but it did. My dialogue with Scully started to expand and with time I sought her approval (which was actually my own) rather than teachers or other adults. Funny how watching Scully navigate properly within her job and social interactions wasn’t the thing that clicked with me but rather the total respect I placed onto her as she was and that respect turned inward towards myself as I was.

Well, do I sound crazy enough yet? Are you rolling your eyes? Whatever, I don’t care if you are; I’ve Dana Scully to thank for that. 

So I started watching Once Upon a Time (I know, shut the hell up) and the amount of relevance I felt towards Regina/The Evil Queen was insane.

I mean just crazy. It made me all ~ emotional ~ and stuff but not in a negative way, but in a reflective way. Watching I saw so much of my younger self in her, in the idea that she needed to do this thing to try and be happy, and that even though it hurt her to do it the drive to try and fix what was wrong was so strong she did it anyways. 

‘Course that was just episode two, who knows who or what I’ll be latching onto in the following episodes - and I never know who or what I’ll be imprinting myself onto in any of the shows or films or books I read but this one was just clench-your-butt-cheeks-hair-blowing-back-WHOA.

Here on tumblr we throw around the word “trigger”, and the context it is thrown around in is fine. Trigger warnings are designed to prevent people who have an extremely strong and damaging emotional response to certain subjects from encountering them unaware. Trigger Warnings make sense. 

From a medical point of view triggers are very different than in the sociological way they are presented on tumblr, and online in general. For many people, myself included, once triggered the body reacts in a very physical way. When I am triggered either by body-memory or any other means (personally I am usually triggered by smell) the event typically accumulates in vomiting, which I am thankful for. Some people pass out. Often times suffers of PTSD do not have attacks brought on by things merely read or seen. More often than not physically severe anxiety attacks are the result of being triggered due to having touched something or being touched, smell, and sounds. But some people are physically triggered due to something read or an image(s).

My problem (if we must call it that) is what the wider connotations “trigger warnings” have for people unaware of the very real and the very physical reactions being triggered comes with.

On tumblr someone creates a post and either they themselves put a “trigger warning” on it or someone else does it for them, and then that post is reblogged and viewed by other people, its exposure spreading out right? The use of the “trigger warning” will undoubtedly fall on the eyes of people who do not understand what a trigger really is and merely understand it in the way in which a trigger is often times expressed on tumblr; as that warning before a post that could make someone mad or sad. And that isn’t really fair. Triggers should be taken very seriously and they should be known to exist outside of the realm of what is just seen. Trigger warnings are necessary and yet I think the use of them are trivializing the effect of being triggered, at least to the majority of tumblr users who do not have a wider context of what “being triggered” is actually like.  

The end bit on that last paragraph can be misleading, so as to clarify:

I do not think sexually abused people like myself have “more serious” anxiety attacks than those who have social anxiety. Being diganosed with PTSD does not mean my attacks are worse or somehow more intense than anyone else who may experience anxiety attacks for any other reason. All of us are cut from the same cloth; comparing and classifying the level of being trigged is stupid and pointless and should not be done. That is not what I am saying. What I am saying is that the constant use of trigger warnings (I’ve seen them put into titles as a joke) is slowly corroding the seriousness of being triggered. Although when discussions on various topics arise trigger warnings are necessary and they are helpful.

It is a jumbled up mess, one I don’t have a answer for. This is just something that has been wearing on me since last being triggered (which was Monday, I vomited and sat in the shower for two hours) and then seeing trigger warning after trigger warning come across my dash. I’m hoping I’m not the only one who has thought of this before.   

I can’t handle it when people roll their eyes or make fun of other people for saying things like “This TV show/film/comic/character saved my life”. A fictional FBI agent has continued to help me through my life and I have ready a big hearty FUCK YOU for whoever tries to make me feel like fictional anything is somehow impossible of helping me or impossible of being, for all intents and purposes, a friend. I don’t owe a goddamn thing to this character. I saw for myself what in her inspired me, through her I helped myself, I built my house; don’t you fucking dare tell me doing so alongside and in correspondence with a television show is “sad” or “pathetic”. How is any self-discovery and growing acceptance of one’s personal being sad or pathetic?

Let me enlighten you as to what is sad and pathetic: Trying to make someone who has struggled with themselves but has found solid ground feel like how they got there was accomplished by some less-worthy or foolish means. 

Fuck you and your heroes, hold their company for you’ll have none of mine.