A YungMun Joint
I was bullied mercilessly in 7th grade. When I went home for the summer, I thought about what to do to improve my situation. I figured out the hierarchy of popularity and then went about figuring out how to go from the bottom to the top. By the end of my 8th grade year, using foul language, bribery, lewd art, and psychological warfare, I was no longer a nerd.
The 131 tips are split into the following categories:
Dad did it early in our lives, like when we had to live in our homeland for a year and then starting back again when he went to work overseas when I was 16. He was able to live like a bachelor for months and even years. I didn’t hear from him that often when he was oveseas. He called maybe once or twice a month. Turns out that he was busy romancing a woman at the. office. He’s still in a weird relationship with her. Who has the time to talk to kids when love is in the air?
Read MoreI had to accept that my parents weren’t going to change at their age. The question then became whether I wanted to associate with them if they remain the way they were, rather who I’d aspire for them to be. It was a no from me.
Read MoreNobody talks about the angry stage of healing. The rage you feel when you realize how much and for how long you were taken advantage of. The absolute disgust you feel towards those who didn’t treat you right.
Personally I use Google slides and I have a deck for reach report (I only have 2) and then a slide for each week of meetings. Then I add my topics to the respective week and we cover in our 1:1s. If I make a note to follow up in 2 weeks I add it to the slide for 2 weeks from now.
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Here’s “Burt”:
Read MoreSarah also credits her upbringing for giving her the observational skills of a master spy. She can sense when people are hiding something from her, and her reading of the power dynamics in any room comes as if by instinct. “I can see how people stand in relation to each other in an instant,” she says. “I can see where fear is coming from, where openness is coming from.” The skills needed to navigate her turbulent childhood appear to serve her well as an adult.
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The following lyric from Big Sean really resonates with me and Emily:
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It was the gentlest braking she’s ever done. It is honestly the first time she’s driven that I haven’t felt like we were about to hit the stopped cars at an intersection.
Read MoreHaving CPSTD I can remember the day, where I was at, roughly how old I was ( child.) When that seed of CPSTD took root. I remember the pain of that small child crying out to a imagined “god” figure. Asking WHY. Why did you put me on this earth if I was just made to suffer. WHY was I made so incorrect. I wished for the final end. I prayed for it. Then I remember the feelings that washed over me as I felt. I wasn’t going make it out of that house alive, it would be because of them.
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The situation:
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Read MoreAt first you didn’t understand why you got frustrated when people start depending on you too much. But it’s because your inner child gets angry that you had to figure it all out by yourself and feel like they should too. You’ve never had a choice but to be independent.
After the second incident, I took a deep look inside and tried to figure out how I could be better at this stuff.
Read MoreIn 1987, I was accused of stealing some money that had gone missing from my mom’s purse. She did everything short of water boarding me to get me to admit that I was a thief.
Read MoreI will preface this by saying that this story is long, and I was not the mastermind to all the revenge that follows, but I did play a crucial role, and feel as though I need to explain my reasons for doing so.
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The road that is recovery from a childhood without a mother’s love, support, and attunement is long and complicated. One aspect of healing that is rarely touched upon is mourning the mother you needed, sought, and — yes — deserved. The word deserved is key to understanding why this remains elusive for many women (and men): They simply don’t see themselves as deserving, because they’ve internalized what their mothers said and did as self-criticism and have wrongly concluded that they’re lacking, worthless, or simply unlovable.
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Like there was this guy in high school who liked to bully me. Like 18 years later, I saw that he and his dad had been indicted by the Feds for loan fraud. Never really thought about the dude, but it closed the chapter for me to see that happen. Plus, he looks like he’s smoked 3 packs a day since we were in gym class together.
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Just read something that described some people as hot stoves. Every time you try to interact with them, you get burned. I’d never heard that, but makes a lot of sense.
Read MoreThe biggest problem for overthinkers is that when they get too attached to someone, their entire mood depends on how the other person responds to them. They are so attuned to other peoples’ emotions that they can notice the tiniest change in someone and then this controls your life.
My family is from South Asia but we live in the States. My parents loved my older brother and tolerated me. They expected me to just stay home and take care of them and my brother.
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Read MoreIf there’s anything internalizers have in common, it’s their need to share their inner experience. As children, their need for genuine emotional connection is the central fact of their existence. Nothing hurts their spirit more than being around someone who won’t engage with them emotionally. A blank face kills something in them. They read people closely, looking for signs that they’ve made a connection. This isn’t a social urge, like wanting people to chat with; it’s a powerful hunger to connect heart to heart with a like-minded person who can understand them. They find nothing more exhilarating than clicking with someone who gets them. When they can’t make that kind of connection, they feel emotional loneliness.
Israel’s actions after the October 7 attacks are a genocide. I don’t agree that retaliation was unwarranted. But, the far right Netanyahu government took it as an opportunity to put their worst plans in motion. They’re much more powerful than the Palestinians. They’ve got the full might of the US behind them; the Palestinians might as well be fighting with spears.
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Read MoreThe kindest people are not born that way, they are made. They are the souls that have experienced much at the hands of life. They are the ones who have dug themselves out of the dark, who have fought to turn every loss into a lesson. The kindest people do not just exist. They choose to soften where circumstances have tried to harden them. They choose to believe in goodness, because they have seen firsthand why compassion is so necessary. They have seen firsthand why tenderness is so important in this world.
I 23m was repeatedly stuck playing the part of helper and babysitter on family outings. I had to move out of my parents’ house because I kept being forced to help watch my three nephews. Last year we took a family vacation in summer to the coast. I rode along with my parents, and they paid for my hotel room. Only, I had to share that room with three rowdy boys because my sister and her husband wanted a room to themselves. I was promised time to do my own things on the vacation. But instead I ended up having to help with these kids. I complained to everyone about it, and was reminded I was there for free. And then we pretty much just did only one thing I wanted to do. Which was tour an art gallery. I like doing this whenever I’m at the coast. But the kids find it boring.
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One of the cruelest things about Autistic/ADHD masking is that you learn to treat positive emotions as a warning sign that you’re about to do something “wrong” and that it is therefore “safest for everyone” if you maintain a constant, low-key negative internal emotional state.
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I developed coping mechanisms that mostly involved reading constantly, never telling people what I was actually thinking about, and having extremely good manners so that authority figures gave me passes.
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I feel like the people in my life cannot comprehend what it’s like to “meet yourself” for the first time at 29 years old. Like - getting my ADHD diagnosis & recognizing that many of my debilitating traits also align with autism (seeking assessment, not diagnosed) is changing my entire life. It’s not just about having a name for it - it feels like someone (finally) gave me the answers I need to actually live my life.
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I was scared mainly because my mom hated my dad, and as an extension, me. She would often speak badly of him, and referred to a desire to murder him in a graveyard. This movie, with Angela Bower going crazy on Peter Strauss, could only amplify this feeling.
Read MoreFirst, from Apis Necros:
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Read More“In a 2008 essay in the journal In Character, history professor Wilfred McClay writes that as a society we have twisted the meaning of forgiveness into a therapeutic act for the victim: “[F]orgiveness is in danger of being debased into a kind of cheap grace, a waiving of standards of justice without which such transactions have no meaning.”
Read MoreAccording to psychology, some people panic when they think they’ve done anything wrong, and obsess over he same mistakes from their childhood repeatedly. This is called moral perfectionism. They crave a clean moral slate.
I think it was mainly feeling bad about the reactions people had to me because I would misbehave and act out. So it started with trying to figure out how to avoid that. Then, as time went on and I encountered new things, I’d sit in my room and have to think them through. I’m almost jealous of people who had their parents or religion just tell them how to be. It was a shortcut I didn’t have.
Read MoreRead MoreMy mother had long stopped being a “mother” to me and was more of an unruly child—much like my younger sisters—whom I was required to supervise.
I fell behind on homework in science class. I remember feeling more and more overwhelmed as the quarter went on. I can’t remember how the situation was resolved, but it must have been.
Read MoreI am literally a full grown adult, still stuck with the exact same nervous system of the autistic kid on the playground with no friends, and the same echo still in my heart saying “nobody wants me.
After a few minutes of listening to this nonsense, I asked, “If it’s so great back home, them why are all of you here?” All the uncles were incensed about my rudeness. I was told to go to my room.
Read MoreNeurotypicals don’t get it. Jessicca will act like I intentionally don’t remember stuff. I have to keep saying, “Do you think I’d make my life more unpleasant on purpose?”
Loved ones and friends—sometimes even therapists—who urge reconnecting with a parent often speak as if forgiveness will be a psychic aloe vera, a balm that will heal the wounds of the past. They warn of the guilt that will dog the victim if the perpetrator dies estranged. What these people fail to take into account is the potential psychological cost of reconnecting, of dredging up painful memories and reviving destructive patterns.
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But, the thing that keeps me optimistic in the face of any struggle is that I’ve made it this far, and outlasted a lot of the people who got over on me.
Read MoreSome peeps are definitely not OK with vulnerability. I think it’s because they have things about themselves they don’t want to face, and seeing us be so open shames them.
Read MoreRead MoreMy therapist told me that: “Your-anxiety and overthinking is a trauma response to tne fact that no one truly protected you when you were younger, but you always did the best to shield yourself from toxic people and experiences.”
The parents are unable to love the child the way they need to be loved.
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…your therapist also would be well served by reading Deb Dana’s books on Polyvagal Theory. Some good quotes that I think you’ll appreciate:
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In the country we came from, Mother’s Day wasn’t celebrated. When we got here, my 2 sisters and I thought it would be nice to get our mom something for the day. We went to K-Mart and found a purse we thought she’d like. After pooling our allowances together, we were just able to afford the purse.
Read MoreOMG Pro-lifers need to shut the fuck up:
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Were YOU the protector who needed safety?
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The Lifelong Guilt Trip of Abstinence Pledges and Purity Balls:
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Read MoreIf you grew up in a dysfunctional family with a raging parent or where expressing emotions led to being wronged, ignored or punished, you quickly learned that your emotions didn’t serve you well. As a survival instinct, you suppressed and buried them deep within yourself…
You were an adult before you ever got to be a child – and now, you sometimes still feel like a child in an adult’s body. You may have grown up being told that you were very “mature” for your age. People often comment on how you seem to have wisdom beyond your years. Yet as an adult you find yourself still feeling like a child at times. That’s because as a kid, you were simultaneously infantilized and parentified. Narcissistic parents demean their children into feeling like they can’t venture out into the world on their own without their help to keep them dependent on them; on the other hand, they also shoulder their children with the burden of being parents to their parents.
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Read MoreStop assumng that people are mad at you. Stop attempting to read people’s minds. Stop trying to manage the thoughts and emotions of others. Let people be in charge of themselves. If they have something to say to you, they will. And if they don’t, it’s their responsibility, not yours.
This might get uncomfortable. I’m unpacking some deep stuff here. If you’re in a really sad place, I suggest coming back when you feel better <3
Many neurodivergents process sensory information more intensively due to their unique and often heightened neural connectivity patterns. This sensitivity means that rapid changes or high-pressure situations can be overwhelmingly stressful. Furthermore, they typically benefit from structured and predictable environments. When these routines are disrupted by the need to rush, it can lead to significant anxiety and difficulty in functioning effectively, due to the need for thorough processing.
Read MoreMy therapist said if you self isolate when overwhelmed, you probably had to solve a lot of your problems alone as a child.
Read MoreSome things can only be seen through eyes that have cried.
Read MoreI have a toxic trait, which is that I suffer in silence and hope someone notices I am not myself. This is because growing up, I had to constantly be there for others, and no one was ever there for me. So, I learned to be the helper but never learned to reach out or be helped.
Read More“People don’t get what it means to be in survival mode as a child. While some are building social skills, kid survivors are building defenses. As adults, some are building families while survivors are rebuilding what they never had to begin with.”
My parents maintain relationships with many friends and relatives both domestically and overseas. Many people think fondly of them, and when they are in public they imitate friendly and kind people.
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I had a vacation scheduled in May, and my coworker said she could get the director to make me cancel the trip because they couldn’t afford to have me not working. I told Jessicca that I was going to quit if that ultimatum was made.
Read MoreRead MoreSome of the kindest souls I know have lived in a world that was not so kind to them. Some of the best human beings I know have been through so much at the hands of others, and they still love deeply, they still care. Sometimes, it’s the people who have been hurt the most who refuse to be hardened in this world, be- cause they would never want to make another person feel the same way they have felt. If that isn’t something to be in awe of, I don’t know what is.
But vulnerability, at its core, isn’t about exposing yourself to harm-it’s about living authentically, even when the world doesn’t guarantee safety or acceptance. It’s acknowledging what’s real for you in the moment without needing it to be validated or understood by anyone else. And when it’s shared in the right context-when someone holds space with you—it can feel less like narcissism and more like courage.
Read MoreI understand how deeply it can feel like holding space for yourself—creating a place to just exist—comes at the expense of others or risks being dismissed as selfishness. And I see how that perspective can make vulnerability seem not just dangerous, but even unjustifiable in a world that can be so hostile toward simply being.
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My mom once tried to make me circulate with appetizers at a party she threw. I told her there is no world where I’m going to be a waiter in my own house.
My NMom was undiagnosed bipolar at the time (she’s a terrible person even with that diagnosis. She’d gone back to her home country because her behavior got too out of hand. We were told it was so she could rest. This was the second time it happened, the first coming when I was 13. The previous time, I ended up having to take care of the house chores because my NDad refuses to do anything he feels is beneath him.
Read MoreFor my entire life, this man was implacable, inscrutable, and entirely unwilling to have any kind of relationship with me … yet he still felt entitled to my adoration an attention. Every day was a new puzzle to be solved, a new set of circumstances I had to figure out, so I could somehow evade his wrath and his cruelty.
Read MoreAfter the second incident, I took a deep look inside and tried to figure out how I could be better at this stuff.
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