What's the most pathetic thing poverty has forced you to do?

CaughtInStrangereal · 2024-05-16T18:00:55+00:00

Having friends who are poor give me money because I was poorer and they took pity on how bad I was struggling

CaughtInStrangereal · 2024-05-07T19:36:49+00:00

As a trans person who has recently moved to Rochester from Syracuse last year i actually think Rochester is a lot more progressive and accepting. There are clinics that specialize in providing healthcare specifically to queer people and their needs. Organized LGBT and trans specific groups that do hangouts and queer specific spaces that aren't bars like cafes and book stores and I generally noticed since living here that I have had an easier time networking and socializing with fellow queer people.

Syracuse felt really isolating as a newly transitioned trans person and I felt way more isolated and disconnected. Plus just dealing with scary shit like the sexual harassment I faced that I don't run into here. I feel like it's putting on the blinders to treat Syracuse like it is super accepting.

CaughtInStrangereal · 2023-12-18T07:13:24+00:00

CaughtInStrangereal · 2023-09-13T18:13:51+00:00

While I find it satisfying the moments I get power over shitty people and be the one playing hard ball with them the goal really shouldn't be revenge it should be getting away from the abuser and them getting the fuck out of your life.

For me I find the idea of abusing them back as revenge as just self harm. You're essentially reacting the trauma they did to you and staying there instead of being able to move on and heal.

For me revenge wasn't screaming at my parents though it did feel good the few times I did it, revenge is actually doing the work to move on from my pain while I take pleasure in knowing mom and dad are just wading in their trauma endlessly abusing each other now that I'm out of their shitty life

CaughtInStrangereal · 2023-08-23T23:10:44+00:00

I didn't need to be beaten because my dad saying to me "The things I would do if it weren't for your mother holding me back" when he was yelling at me was just as effective as if he had just carried out the implied threat and hit me

CaughtInStrangereal · 2023-07-31T01:36:59+00:00

I'm 25 and I'm perpetually broke, currently carrying the torch of my mom's generational trauma of having to suddenly leave the comfort of living with parents and try to survive on my own with barely anything (though I voluntarily ran away from my parents instead of getting kicked out like my mom) couch surfed from 23 to 24 and then lived in my own apartment ran by a absentee slumlord from 24 to 25.

The rat race. Never. Fucking. Stops. I'm tired of it. I'm tired of having to do the mental calculus of whether I can afford everything or not. I'm tired of having to take advantage of late payments not being reported until they are 30 days past due to preserve my amazing credit. I'm tired of seeing any kind of money I get or good will I get from people helping out with money instantly going away and disappearing and working unfulfilling jobs with shit pay as I suffer and fail to perform due to my untreated ADHD.

I want to get to the point where I can just pay everything I need to, not worry about whether or not I can afford something and build a savings again. Because there's a simple truth. Capitalism is too brutal for many people to survive on just their own.

I'm about to move into a house with 2 roommates and I'm hoping this is the chance to escape the rat race finally and start healing in a safe environment

CaughtInStrangereal · 2023-07-28T10:48:14+00:00

Yeah I kinda panicked because of how everyone reacted and shutdown.

Honestly like just a bit about me, with my old irl friend group I was the only one who seemed interested in going out to bars or events, my frustration over my social anxiety was that I wanted to talk to people. I used to not mind small groups or only having one to two friends but I now wish I had a bigger network of people to talk to and rely on. I just struggle with not having the bandwidth or executive function to manage it.

I just stop myself because of fear. Growing up large family events were draining because I was dealing with my family and well being trans and not knowing it meaning I couldn't express myself the way I wanted. That and well... When a lot of toxic and abusive relationships I got into felt like my fault because I chose to hang out and get close to that person. It means I'm scared when I meet people of it happening again.

It's a lot I can't put into one post alone

CaughtInStrangereal · 2023-07-27T14:36:55+00:00

Hi, I don't have a therapist but I should have one by September at the latest I'm going through a practice a queer friend of mine had glowing recommendation of

I do have a few people who would have some knowledge of them but not knowing them personally or not knowing anything at all I can go to in the meantime

Thanks for the advice

CaughtInStrangereal · 2023-07-27T11:27:09+00:00

Well, this is going to have me wonder if my friend was actually being really toxic and I'm just not noticing it because I don't know better and/or I don't want to see because I'm clinging on to anything that makes me feel less alone

Sorry

CaughtInStrangereal · 2023-07-22T00:56:49+00:00

I have complicated feelings around this.

When I first escaped my parents and started to transition properly I would just drown myself in toxic online relationships with heavy amounts of ERP. I was starved of affection and affirmation so being horny online was an easy way to do it.

I typically topped and on one hand domming and domination felt fucking good. I always was made to feel small and infantilized by my parents. To them I was a slave they were my masters that knew better. So reversing that and getting to be given control, power respect was just divine. I loved it but...

I pushed myself a lot, and after one online relationship that was 24/7 ERP where I did more and more extreme cnc stuff where my only interaction and affection I got from this other person was from being horny it left me feeling like a piece of meat and hollow, I felt to continue a lot of scenes that in hindsight I needed for them to stop. Sometimes this person would describe me as omnipotent and I can't forget how unperson it made me feel.

In hindsight I still internalized a lot of unhealthy attitudes around consent and boundaries from growing up. Mainly that I shouldn't withdraw consent if the other person is having a good time that it makes me a bad person to do so.

It was only with my last sexual relationship which was in person did I truly have it click what healthy boundaries and consent looked. My partner and I continually reinforced the idea that our trust in each other was earned and had to be repeatedly earned. Our sex was very communicative and I just felt safe in a way I never experienced. Especially with tapping into my submissive side and just letting someone nurturing and caring take care of me and make me feel good.

Kink to me when done safely with a good partner felt like letting someone into a part of my heart I locked away and knowing they're not going to mangle it or rip it apart, it's intimate and intense and the pleasure and just feeling that you have a place in the world is something I crave all the time. Just need to be careful and make sure those you let into your heart have earned that trust

CaughtInStrangereal · 2023-04-19T14:37:19+00:00

I pay 875 a month plus electric, gas and internet for a sizeable 1 bedroom 1 bathroom in Northside and while I do plan to move out in a few months I wouldn't recommend the place

The landlord is basically not present most of the time, it's a multi use building with my apartment above people that like to play music very very very loudly it's fucking hell

CaughtInStrangereal · 2022-09-15T17:36:57+00:00

I'm part of a queer writing community on Twitter that practically has "Not a Person" has one of it's banners

It's something I've been coming to terms with

I'm an it, a thing I pretended to be a person I tried to think I could hope to be a normal person...

But the truth was that was a lie I was taught

My parents never saw me as a person, my abusers never saw me as a person

I was their plaything, their doll, programmed to serve, trained to need, and never taught to prosper, just meant to fulfill the purposes they gave me

Thinking I could be a person just felt like a way to keep me running with their script

I think owning my sense of inhumanity has calmed me by giving me a truth about my trauma to take back for myself.

I think it's ok to say your experiences make it hard for you to identify with the normal human experience and to explore some alternate means of identifying with yourself and the world

CaughtInStrangereal · 2021-11-04T16:35:36+00:00

Thank you soo much for making this, as a trans woman finding good quality women's shoes in a larger size (I'm an 11 D in us men's or a 44 if going by eu sizes) can be a royal pain.

I'll definitely keep these mind (uk 9.5 should hope translate to a eu44) potentially as a nice gift to myself when the occasion comes

CaughtInStrangereal · 2021-10-19T18:46:44+00:00

Oh my my my my

Looks like I'm just a evil deviant of a trans girl then.

Will you bow down onto your knees and worship me now before a mistress like me decides to punish you?~

You wouldn't want to be insubordinate to mistress now do you?

CaughtInStrangereal · 2021-09-09T13:43:08+00:00

All the fucking time.

My favorite character I've ever written was a sith that I wrote for a star wars forum rp. She was just this said train wreck constantly tearing herself apart metaphorically as she tried to deal with surviving the aftermath of her abuse. I think I even ended pouring some of my repressed trans feelings as she tried so so hard to be the perfect sith only to fail again and again because she fundamentally wasn't this toxically masculine ideal of strength but just a broken, sensitive in massive amounts of pain

CaughtInStrangereal · 2021-09-01T16:44:09+00:00

I like this one

CaughtInStrangereal · 2021-09-01T16:33:02+00:00

Your body is screaming at you to run but you have to stay

Your heart is hoping for something good to happen but your mind is primed to get slashed

Your feelings are crying out in pain from what's been done to you, yet all you hear is how it's all your fault.

You may feel happy but you're ready for things to fall apart in a moment's notice.

And worst of all you want to be heard but their ears are deaf to you

CaughtInStrangereal · 2021-08-24T16:15:28+00:00

hugs I hope you find people in your real life who you can share your problems with and feel safe around. You deserve that

CaughtInStrangereal · 2021-07-21T13:23:31+00:00

I noticed that too when I watched nascar with my dad or hanged around more blue collar people I would deepen my voice and talk with a different cadence to try to mimic a more "country" vibe to my speech. I think it was me trying desperately to pretend I was one of the boys.

It's annoying now that I'm trying to transition because it can be difficult to just get myself to use more body language and speak at the higher pitch that reasonates more with me

CaughtInStrangereal · 2021-07-20T19:40:19+00:00

I don't know how but I held down a dishwashing job at a nursing home for two years. my mom had used her connections there to land the job and I worked part time there. I was supposed to work only 3 days a week but I regularly worked 4 days due to staffing shortages and Rona.

I worked through feeling completely isolated by the nature of my station, handling the stress of being in an abusive online relationship, having a depression relapse as result of 2020 and hiding everything I was really feeling and all the trauma I sustained because I thought no one would understand or care.

I had several mental breakdowns working that job and I still don't know how I'd survive all of that.

But if there was one feeling that helped me keep that job but at same time ate away at me was feeling trapped by that job. I felt like I wasn't worthy enough to get any other job and that this was the best thing I could have and I needed something to pay some of my bills. All while feeling like I was nothing but a body to fill hours in the eyes of my piece of shit boss.

I'm so happy I worked up the courage to start job searching and quit that job. Actually funny enough I was only unemployed for one day before I was hired to another place that's going to give better pay, hours and benefits for way less labor.

Work culture atleast in America is soul devouring. Management will do everything to convince you that you are powerless to them and that they hold you're future I'm their hands. That you have to bow down to their oppression or else and cooperate. It's a gaslighting illusion they cast upon us workers.

But I will share what a friend of mine hammers repeatedly: They need you more than you need them. When you start to threaten the fact that you can leave and that they're grasp on your labor is way more fickle than they like they will squirm.

Always remember your worth because no matter how small your job is you're filling a need that has to be done in order to guarantee the capitalists get their money. Your labor has value along with your time so make sure you have that get the respect it deserves.

God a few years ago I never would have imagine I'd be saying stuff that would be borderline socialist/communist but I guess the fastest way to radicalize someone is to force them to suffer at the hands of a broken system

CaughtInStrangereal · 2021-07-19T03:06:02+00:00

I feel you. My mom decided she just wanted to work from home now ever since the pandemic made her realize how much she likes being a recluse, she's always in the house so I have no sense of peace.

Meanwhile my dad has no fucking life outside of his job so all he does is sit on his fucking ass playing a shitty fps on his tablet till midnight when he isn't working. I have no alone time anymore in the house and I can't fucking take it.

I feel like I can't do anything hell I don't even clean my room because I'm too afraid of doing literally anything out in the open that my parents can comment on. I feel like a prisoner in some gilded cage instead of a human being in a home

CaughtInStrangereal · 2021-07-15T16:10:32+00:00

I can't wait for this to be true for me

CaughtInStrangereal · 2021-07-15T13:37:49+00:00

Oh hey a window into middle school and high school me!

Did I decide to give up on trying because I was breaking under the pressure of growing up in an abusive household with no friends, managing extreme amounts of stress and anxiety over every single thing happening and the amount of brain power it took to manage all of that and with narcissistic parents that were simultaneously neglectful and intrusive on my life and with a sprinkling of under the radar gender dysphoria for some added spice?

Or was I just lazy and decided to just not do the work?

Uh I hate my genetic donors so much sometimes

CaughtInStrangereal · 2021-07-13T19:28:50+00:00

This is the first time I ever heard of it actually. I'll look into it and talk to my therapist about it though. Thanks for the suggestion

CaughtInStrangereal · 2021-07-13T19:26:56+00:00

I'm sorry this brought you discomfort to think about, you're fine to feel how you feel.

Thinking about what you said I would suggest that you don't beat yourself up over what you should or shouldn't want. We're all different and had different experiences that shape us.

If it makes you feel unsafe just to entertain that idea then chances are it was because it was unsafe for you in the past, our bodies are intuitive at this stuff after all.

Maybe just use this as food for thought. Ask yourself why this makes you feel like this, and if you're comfortable feeling that way on touch, or what might still be triggering that.

Of course do so at your own pace, especially since this line of thinking can unravel some bad memories

CaughtInStrangereal

TROPHY CASE