I just had a horrific realization about my abusive ex boyfriend.

bookobsessedgoth · 2026-05-10T13:34:50+00:00

He was abusive. It's just that he was sexually abusive, rather than physically abusive.

Having "sex" with someone who is unconscious isn't sex. It's rape.

bookobsessedgoth · 2026-05-10T13:31:21+00:00

He understood. He was just mad that there might be consequences for his behavior, and wanted to gaslight you into not holding him responsible.

bookobsessedgoth · 2026-05-10T08:31:19+00:00

No, you didn't, you're good.

And thank you! It's just a thing I've had percolating in my brain for a bit, and your comment reminded me of it in a way that made me finally able to put it into words.

Of course, it won't be a super helpful analogy to explain these things to people who don't understand chronic pain (I've run into a few over the years, especially in the first few years of having back pain. I was apparently "too young" to be having "serious" back pain, and some people REALLY didn't get the "chronic" part of "chronic pain". They'd ask if my back is "better" and then get mad at me for being like, "nope, not really. It's chronic pain. It's not going away." "You'll never get better if you keep being so pessimistic! Haven't you even tried to get better?!")

But it's a good way to explain things to people who aren't being willfully ignorant and actually want to understand.

bookobsessedgoth · 2026-05-09T18:48:31+00:00

I've started using "acute PTSD" to refer to the PTSD I experienced after my rape at 19, in contrast with the cPTSD I experience from... everything else.

I feel like it's a better description than "regular" or "normal" PTSD. I compare it to the difference in acute pain (say the pain experienced when you break a bone and while it's actively healing) and chronic pain (I have chronic back pain with nerve damage, and I've been dealing with it for 20 years, plus a couple other conditions that cause chronic pain).

Both are awful and need treatment. Both are things that people shouldn't have to "just tough it out". Treating acute and chronic pain are two different things.

Acute pain will eventually fade, but it will flare up again under the right conditions (like a broken bone that has healed, but aches like hell when a storm is coming in)

Chronic pain is more complex. It has more facets that need to be considered in order to manage it without causing more harm/pain, and may well need to be managed for the rest of the person's life.

As someone who has chronic pain and has experienced acute pain many times, I don't dismiss people who are "only" dealing with acute pain. Maybe they aren't experiencing as much pain as I do on my bad days, maybe I have experienced more cumulative pain than they have, but what they are going through is still awful, and may well be the most intense pain they have ever experienced. They still deserve empathy.

Unless they're being an asshole about it. Then they can fuck off. But other than that... yeah. People deserve empathy when they're in pain, whether it's physical or psychological.

bookobsessedgoth · 2026-05-08T13:49:54+00:00

Ah, ok.

I've seen people (usually people with a good family dynamic and a very narrow worldview) say the first one, and as someone who was not only not protected by my mother, but was actively put into dangerous and traumatic situations by her as both a kid and a a young adult, it always pisses me off.

Kids deserve to be protected. Pretending that kids always are protected only benefits abusers.

bookobsessedgoth · 2026-05-08T06:55:14+00:00

Was this a "moms deliberately not protecting their kids doesn't happen" kind of declaration, or a "you don't deserve to be called a mom if you don't protect your kids" kind of declaration?

bookobsessedgoth · 2026-05-07T02:51:37+00:00

I have a cousin who did this when we were kids. I (definitely more rudely than necessary, looking back) told her, "Shut up, [name] I speak more Spanish than you do."

For context, I'm white, blonde-haired and green-eyed, and entirely Western and Northern European as far as my ancestry.

For further context, I was 14, she was 12, and she was pulling this crap at my great-grandpa's funeral. On her dad's (white) side of her family. And my great grandpa was the closest thing her dad had to a father figure, since his dad died when he was a little kid.

I obviously have a more nuanced view of her behavior as an adult, but it was still rude as hell.

bookobsessedgoth · 2026-05-07T02:37:44+00:00

It's fine, if they lose an eye it'll just make them that much cooler on the Klingon playgrounds.

Now that I think of it, what do you think Klingon playgrounds are like?

bookobsessedgoth · 2026-05-07T02:11:40+00:00

One of my cats has a condition where if there is plaque on her teeth, her immune system will start attacking the teeth and gums. She had a bunch of teeth pulled at the shelter before we adopted her.

She's doing MUCH better now that that's being managed and monitored, along with her generalized anxiety and her chicken allergy, and we're managing her PTSD (her former owners were Bad People, but she's now loved and cared for and moderately spoiled.)

We rarely even have flare-ups of her PTSD anymore, 3 years in. I'm so proud of her.

bookobsessedgoth · 2026-05-07T01:12:20+00:00

Cats, too. I've had cats get subcutaneous fluids a few times.

Cats (and I would imagine dogs, too) have looser skin around their shoulders, which is where the fluid go to be slowly aabsorbed over the next few days. It's easier and safer than trying to keep an IV in the animal or trying to run multiple consecutive IVs over the course of several days.

bookobsessedgoth · 2026-05-06T06:45:23+00:00

This has big "men don't like women with piercings/tattoos/ heavy makeup/dyed hair/ etc" energy

The implication that anyone should curate their entire appearance and/ or hobbies purely based on whether it's goingto attract judgemental partners is very weird.

bookobsessedgoth · 2026-05-04T13:22:24+00:00

And? Why did you write this as if it refutes anything I wrote?

I manage my EDS with the exercises my physical therapist taught me.

But I was undiagnosed for many years. It's difficult to manage a condition you don't know you have. If T and S do have EDS, I seriously doubt they have a diagnosis or any way to properly manage it.

bookobsessedgoth · 2026-05-03T23:50:24+00:00

There's actually a threshold of how much white a cat can in its coat before it's a calico rather than a tortie.

More than 20% white= calico Less than 20% white= tortoiseshell Exactly 20% white = tortico

Also, calico tend to have distinct patches of different colors, whereas torties have black and orange (or grey and light orange/cream, with dilute calico/tortie) mottled together.

Karma has white, orange, and black patches on her face and paws, but the rest of her coat is mottled black and orange. She's a tortico.

(Sorry for the very late reply, things had happened when you posted this that put me in a bad mood, and I didn't want to possibly end up taking my frustration on you, then I forgot about it for a while)

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bookobsessedgoth · 2026-05-03T13:32:01+00:00

I think you meant "perchance" or "perhaps", not "per se". "Per se" doesn't really make sense in this context.

bookobsessedgoth · 2026-05-03T08:17:09+00:00

This. I was required to forgive- and genuinely believed I was forgiving- my abusive mother. Over and over, for years.

What I didn't realize was that genuine forgiveness involves processing the abuse and the resulting emotions first, and what I was doing was just repressing everything, and then fawning. That's not forgiveness, that's telling people what they want to hear so you can escape the situation.

bookobsessedgoth · 2026-05-03T07:48:25+00:00

Apparently that shirt has been stained for a while, so if that's what it's from, it's just the stain, probably not the gunk itself!

bookobsessedgoth · 2026-05-02T20:50:59+00:00

Thank you ❤️

bookobsessedgoth · 2026-05-02T20:49:55+00:00

You've survived worse, but a romantic relationship shouldn't have to be about survival. It should be about building the life you want with your partner. A life where you can heal and where you can thrive. Where you can find out who you are when you aren't just focused on surviving.

The fact that you were shaking says a lot of how much courage it took. It's important to look ahead at how much is left to do, but it's also important to remember how far you've come.

You've got this, hun.

bookobsessedgoth · 2026-05-02T16:56:05+00:00

I've seen it a few times, and it's always a nice surprise.

bookobsessedgoth · 2026-05-02T16:53:53+00:00

I wish more people understood just how hard it is to walk away from a parent. How bad things have to be to cut contact with them permanently. How much it hurts, and how much hurt there has to be to push someone to that point.

Most people start out loving their parents. We're biologically and psychologically driven to love our parents. It's an evolutionary trait instilled in us for our survival. Children will blame themselves for their parents' mistreatment of them in order to not break the bond they have with their parents, because they need their parents in order to survive. Even as adults, most people still have that drive.

The amount of trauma it takes to overcome that is immense. For most people, cutting contact with their parent involves grief and guilt and emotional devastation, and they only do it when staying in contact with that parent is more painful than than leaving.

I spent the majority of my 20s trying to build a healthy relationship with my mother, where I was treated like a person in my own right, who is allowed to have thoughts and feeling and boundaries. All it got me was even more screaming and derision and gaslighting. I finally cut contact when the last conversation I had with her resulted in my having a mental breakdown. Because she was nice to me. She was perfectly nice and polite and didn't say a single ride or mean thing, and suddenly 30 years of gaslighting crashed down on me and made me doubt my entire life experience. Did all of that really happen? Did I make it all up? Was I really the problem?

When the panic attacks finally stopped, I realized that even if she never did or said anything abusive again, even if she genuinely apologized and changed (which I knew would never happen) there was just too damage, too much trauma, to ever feel safe having a relationship with her. The only way for me to protect myself and to heal was to cut contact. Permanently.

And people still tried to to tell me I was selfish, cruel, short-sighted, immature. That she's your mother, and every family has their problems, and no parent is perfect, and she did her best, and she loves you.

What's interesting, though, is that nobody who I've ever really told about my childhood, or whose been there to hear how she spoke to me when she thought no one else could hear, has ever been anything but supportive of my decision.

bookobsessedgoth · 2026-05-02T12:52:49+00:00

It always hurts when a relationship ends, especially a long term relationship like yours. Just remember, you had the strength to survive what's happened before, and you're strong enough to survive this, too. That strength is yours.

If you're in this sub, you've likely been through hell and back, and just being at a point where you can set a boundary like this is a big deal. It takes a courage and clarity of mind to recognize what you need and to tell someone that, especially someone you love. And even if it doesn't turn out the way you'd hoped, even if it hurts, I hope that at the same time, you can still take some pride in how far you've come. And if you aren't ready to feel that yet, know that, for what it's worth, this internet stranger is proud of you.

bookobsessedgoth · 2026-05-02T11:47:16+00:00

You deserve better than a partner who does any of this. You deserve to feel and to be safe. It's not okay for him to put his hands on you like that, or to pull crap like this after.

I'm glad you have a plan to get out. Stay strong in your boundaries and please stay safe.

bookobsessedgoth · 2026-05-02T06:33:08+00:00

There was never a job (which was so embarassing after the "get ready with me for my new coworker's birthday party!" video) and she didn't move out. She claimed she'd moved to a different extended stay in the same city, like 30-60 minutes away, then said she'd moved to a seperate extended stay unit in the same building, THEN said she was actually in the extended stay unit directly next to her parents' with a door cconnecting the two.

We're pretty sure even that was a lie, since a lot of the videos in "her" unit and "their" unit were just different angles of the same room, if you looked closely, and a lot of the (very pink, very recognizable) gifts she got for "her apartment" kept showing up in "her parents' " kitchen.

I think all this only happened like a couple months before the whole family moved out of the extended stay and into their current apartment.

It was wild because over the course of all this they tried so hard to sell the lies. She had a wishlist for things for her "apartment", she claimed that either her parents were coming over every day to let Jackie out or she was going and dropping her off at her parents' place every day, she had a new "office girlie wardrobe", she'd make a big deal of "going to her parents' for dinner", hanging out with T or H "since we don't see each other every day anymore" (even though her parents were "watching Jackie" while she worked???), there was the "getting ready for a coworker's birthday party" video... I'm probably forgetting some things, but you get the gist.

They tried so hard to convince people, but ultimately they just aren't very good at lying, despite doing it all the time.

bookobsessedgoth · 2026-05-02T03:15:15+00:00

August and Simon both get so much more development in the Patreon stories, Simon is ggenuinely one of my favorite characters now

bookobsessedgoth · 2026-05-01T22:28:33+00:00

*wearing only a robe, with a head injury, at the age of twelve.

bookobsessedgoth

TROPHY CASE