It's June 1. It's Time.

Monday, May 29th, 2023

3:29pm

Here’s the texts of when I texted my older sister, 5 months after everything that happened while I was in New York City with her.

Here’s what I said to her:

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

kay i don’t know shit about naruto so i hope this is accurate!! anon i trust u

one of the main things i love about the little mermaid movie is how they changed grimsby.

he starts off just like the original animated version, so uptight and very dedicated to keeping eric from going all over the place, but as the movie goes on, he's a little more playful, a little more understanding.

when he gives eric the little smile and says "I think we can spare one carriage" and turns a completely blind eye to eric and ariel leaving the castle?

when he distracts the queen because he sees eric and ariel hiding?

when he asks eric if they should call off the search, and gives him the encouragement to be with ariel?

when he's immediately suspicious of vanessa?

when he kicks the engagement ring away after it falls near him?

when he holds the queen back from chasing after eric when he goes to help ariel?

literally grimsby was one of my FAVORITE side characters in the movie, they did him so well, i love how he's obviously a surrogate father to eric, and how he comes to be so fond of ariel

*Trigger Warnings: Descriptions of physical abuse, mental abuse, emotional abuse, parental abuse, verbal abuse, child neglect, threats, anxiety, panic attacks, violence towards children.* Monday, June 19th, 2023 Part 2 6:32pm

Now, I introduce you to our new roles. I became the “golden child”; conditioned to get the perfect grades and carry out all orders timely and perfectly. I was the “nanny and pseudo-parent”; directed to take care of my siblings, provide food for them, get them ready for school, help with homework, and handle any misbehaving and report only the extremes. I was the “maid”; the only child in the house with chores, which meant I had all of them, even cleaning up after my “parents”. And, I was the “butler”; I had to deliver everyone their plates, eating last, and take James’ dishes after every meal and bring him a hot cloth to clean his hands. I became depressed, anxious, and extremely hyper-independent, curling in on myself and realizing this is not what “home” should feel like. I was “maturing” fast, and my adults took advantage of it.

Anthony was the “rebellious child”. He was more outwardly angry, picked fights at school, and sought comfort in his friends. He wasn’t trusted with responsibility, so he didn’t receive any. And, eventually, the rules and standards that were established with me, as the oldest, didn’t work with him. He gradually grew more and more distant with the family, as I was becoming the crutch for them.

My two little sisters, and soon-to-be youngest brother, were raised more graciously, still servants to the king and with the same emotional detachment. Thankfully, they never had to experience the abuse that Anthony and I had to endure. So, while they love their father, because that’s all they know, they don’t know the true terrors of that man, and I’m truly grateful that they won’t ever go through that. 

My mother suffered as you put all of the parenting responsibilities onto her, as you forced her to attend to every need and want you spoke of, as you made her shoulder the finances to keep the house fed and taken care of. You, however, would go to your job (I can’t even remember which one because you job-hopped so much), come home, claim and monopolize the washer and the bathroom for hours, shut yourself in your room to watch “your” TV, beg and call for “your wife” to come spend time with you while asking her to do everything for you, ignore your kids and yell at them to stay quiet, and go to sleep. This is your daily routine, even now in the present.

I left my home because of you. I was 10, and my father had reappeared back in my life for the past 2 years. After visiting him twice, he offered me to come live with him, and I took it because anything’s better than here, right? WRONG. My dad is a whole other story, but I came back after a year. You would think that would be enough time for change to take hold, but it didn’t, and how could there when the space is constantly suffocated and stifled with immaturity, unintelligence, and vitriol. 

The standard was to get all the chores done before you got home and without being told, which is normal, if you disregard the fact that you threatened to beat us within an inch of our lives if we didn’t do so. You did plenty of times before. Having to hide bruises with long-sleeved shirts, oversized hoodies, and pants in the summer, and excusing ones on my face with stories of rough-housing or accidental falling against a cabinet. 

The standard was to watch the kids at all times, and make sure that they don’t get into trouble. Once, when Malia was learning to stand up on her own, she fell and hit her forehead on a vent, while I was changing a movie for Anthony and I. I was beat and blamed for that accident, and wasn’t allowed to watch anything because my focus should be on them. Once, Anthony locked both Malia and Jasmyn in the car with the keys as they were still infants, and I was inside putting on my shoes, my “parents” still taking their time to leave for church. After I tried calming Anthony down from a panic attack and telling James, Anthony was stomped in the chest against a fence, my mom barely getting him off, and I was punched in shoulder and shoved against concrete while you spat that I should have never let it happen. We were left at home that day. 

Once, I was riding in the trunk with the top open, as we got home late, and a shooting happened right in front of me in the street, us kids still in the car in the driveway. You and Mom were in the house because we weren’t allowed out of the car until you said so. You were angry that I didn’t do more to protect my siblings, that I confided in my teacher what happened, and that I woke you up when police came banging on the door at 2am. I was 11. And I had nightmares for months.

Once, you threw Anthony against the washer and beat him in front of your two extended family members at Christmas because he took too long to take out the garbage. Then, your family decided to praise you for it and talk about it, as if it wasn’t brutal and my mom didn’t have to pull you off of him.

Things got better in their own way after my youngest brother was born. I was 12, almost 13, at the time. You magically stopped. I still don’t know what changed to make you stop.

But I still wasn’t your kid.

You started to refer to me and Anthony as “boy”, and nothing else. You made sure to tell us and show us that we were separated from our siblings. You would probably say that we had to earn our keep or that we learned some lesson, but that’s not the truth. You have other kids that are much older than us, and you never contact them or tried to do right by them. I think when my mom told me that years ago, I should have realized sooner the type of man you are.

Part 1 -- Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who has trouble remembering developmental milestones. I put these together, but can’t take credit for any of the photography. Hope someone finds them helpful!

Friendships are such an interesting component of humanity. They truly serve us in a valuable way in terms of finding connection, interaction, community, and belonging. It’s fascinating and colorful to also see how different people think and value friendship and companionship. I had a rough conversation with my mother about some problems that I have been having about my own friendships at the moment. She brought up the fact that she doesn’t rely on friendships that much because she had a strong relationship to her family that she knew would never waver. She saw reoccurring patterns in the people that she attempted to be friends with, was continuously hurt by people that were a risk to trust, so she realized that friendship wasn’t that important to her.

There is always a risk when you meet someone, or are trying to make friends, or start a new relationship. Deciding what, when, how, and why you want to share with people is always risky, and exposing and opening yourself to people is always a hard thing to do. But why is it so easy for me? I actually find a lot of comfort and release when I open up to people and share who I am with people. I feel like I am getting closer to knowing my authentic self when I let go of expectations and hesitations about who people think I am when I just honestly tell people about myself. However, as a sophomore in college, I have learned to fear that side of myself. I have learned the patterns of hurt and betrayal that surround me with friendships, and even the problems that I am experiencing right now with my friends follow the same trend. I value and think of friendships to be a deeper connection than what most people think for themselves. My family never served to treat me in a loving, caring, affectionate, stable way, and didn’t teach and show me how relationships work and function. Through the abuse and trauma that they inflicted on me, I don’t have a safe space that my mother had when she was growing up. She had a bright, caring family to come back to, I have a dark chasm of self hatred and longing. A chasm that is reserved and meant to be filled by the love, affirmation, and belonging by my family.

So I look to friendships instead to fill that chasm. I pour my all into trying to build a support system through friendships that grow. Being seen, recognized, accepted, and loved put the pieces back together that have always been broken inside me. But the pieces only held together by aging glue. Until they fall apart again because those seemingly supportive friendships weren’t as supportive as I was led to believe. I have a twisted view on friendships, believing that the way that I see and value my friends are, by default, the same way that my friends see and value me, but that is a lie that I keep telling myself. I don’t mean the same thing to them, the same way they mean to me. Why is that so hard for me to understand and live with? Maybe it’s because they will never be the family that I should have received growing up. Maybe it’s because I have too much baggage to be supported by the unstable connections between us that I am desperately relying on. Maybe I am looking in all the wrong places for something that will never be found because the time for that has long passed. Or maybe the problem is just me?

My friends do not owe me anything. My friends are not obligated to constantly support me and fill/fix the everlasting holes within me. Do I address my issues with them? Even when I know that they probably will be offended by what I have to say? I am putting them in an impossibly difficult place. But is it so wrong of me to not to want to be alone? Is it wrong of me to want to feel like I am not broken or damaged, and want to feel like I have people I can come back to no matter what? But maybe that opportunity is not meant for me anymore. Maybe this is all I am meant to get from relationships at this point. I should be more grateful for what I have, for my friends, and for everything that they have done for me, but I can’t help but want for more. But alas, friendships aren’t meant to be used for self-gratification, for me to feel liked, loved, accepted. For me to feel like me, just once, in my fucked up life. please… But maybe this is a sign that instead of trying so hard to get something that is impossible to get, I should learn to live and adapt to what people’s emotional capacities are. I should be willing to sacrifice my wants, needs and desires, and be real with the rest of the world. Because in reality, the time has passed for the world to be able to meet my wants, needs, and desires. Now the world will never be enough.

Chapter 7-20

Confessions

Read on Tapas / Read on Webtoon

More info/buy the books: https://aliceoseman.com/

Heartstopper updates three times a month, on the 1st, 11th, and 21st at 11am UK time.

I knew she would!!! 😁❤️👏🏾

(She's gonna LOVE it!! 😁)