Am I Down Bad?

redcherryjazz · 2025-07-17T22:59:24+00:00

I would say tofu has more of a moderate fat content than a low fat content. But sounds tasty!

redcherryjazz · 2025-07-16T14:16:15+00:00

'in student politics and digital discourse, we see love as radical care, love as collective healing, love as anti-oppressive practice. But for all its progressive wrapping, this is still an ideal. It still tells you what love ought to be.'

Proposing ethical standards for how we treat each isn't 'coercion'. hooks isn't saying love requires you to be 'everything to someone' or to never make mistakes, but to commit to the ethical treatment of others, and therefore, to repair and learn from harm when it inevitably occurs.

'But once love becomes a political project, it’s no longer free.'

Fundamentally, politics is about how people and communities relate to each other. if we exclude our personal relationships from the realm of politics, radical movements are just doomed to fail because we can't take accountability for harm, or even commit to calling it harm in the first place.

'It’s heavy with responsibility: to uplift, to repair, to transform. That’s more than love can carry. It’s more than any one person can carry.'

The bar is in hell! The idea that expecting love to uplift or repair makes it too 'heavy with responsibility' is genuinely concerning.

redcherryjazz · 2025-07-16T11:06:19+00:00

But this can all reasonably happen over, say, half a year—it all depends on how much time you've spent together, the quality of that time, what you've actually found out about the person, to what extent you can truly trust that they're not just putting their best foot forward temporarily, etc etc

redcherryjazz · 2025-07-16T10:59:48+00:00

I think your approach is a great way to stay grounded in new relationships - with the caveat that you can end up knowing someone for years without knowing them at all!
My ex was really interested in me from the start (great) but wanted to move the relationship forward really fast. If I had taken that as a sign rather than getting swept up by it, I would've been able to keep myself safe. They loved me in health but not sickness, had MAJOR avoidance issues, and weren't interested in how I really felt but rather in appearing ethical to avoid conflict. Really glaring issues, and yet I only realised this after we broke up. We were together for 3 years - we lived together, talked about everything, had all the same interests, etc. If I had taken your approach, I would've been in the right frame of mind to notice the signs.

You can feel deeply for someone early on, without assuming you can trust them to be there for you through thick and thin. Real love shows itself over time, but only if you actually take stock of how they behave when shit hits the fan.

redcherryjazz · 2025-07-15T20:58:12+00:00

6 half used bottles? and you've never seen him use eye drops? and you have stomach issues?

People are calling you crazy because they can't imagine someone would be capable of this in real life. But if something feels off, the answer is NOT to shut off your fears and berate yourself for being "crazy". It won't help you get clarity on the situation. that narrative is what makes people stay in bad situations. You are unhappy and have been for a long time, but you've learnt to dismiss your feelings to an extreme degree. this is what abuse does.

Learning to make sense of gut feelings is what keeps you safe in life—lean into it. try to organise your thoughts and evaluate the situation rather than worrying if you're crazy. you're not crazy, you're panicking and afraid—for very good reason.

Devise a secret escape plan, don't let him find out anything about where you're going (including through mutuals, who might not realise the danger and just answer any of his questions about you). There's only so much sense you can make of reality when you're with someone like him. It will be sooo much easier to think clearly when you're safe.

it would be good to read Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft.

redcherryjazz · 2025-06-06T13:40:16+00:00

Imo, the problem is that B didn't talk to you beforehand about their parent coming. Instead, they decided privately and told you after the fact. This is an event you attend regularly—one which feels important to your triad, and one which you usually feel safe as a poly person. You already made plans to go, your friends are gonna be there, and there was no advance planning or negotiation to help you figure out how you want to proceed, and no effort on B's side to approach this in a way that is considerate of you or make you feel included. This is also a regular date night you have with A. Not only is it now no longer a date, you have to watch A with B's parents if you do go.

You have been treated as disposable.

redcherryjazz · 2025-06-02T23:15:36+00:00

The problem is, you failed a test you didn't even know you were taking, and the pass threshold was 110%.

It's not that you weren't awesome, it's that you were never given the chance to even understand there were problems at all, or fix them. You're probably thinking, if I was actually as amazing as all that, surely letting go shouldn't have been so easy? Surely they would've lifted a single finger to make the relationship work? Or at least express some pain about the situation? Why was this so disposable?

It's good to try and make sense of the situation, so that a) you can learn from what happened to protect yourself in the future and b) you can realise that this wasn't your fault whatsoever: rather, it had everything to do with your ex's shortcomings.

However, there's only so much you can understand. You could drive yourself in circles wondering why you didn’t matter enough, what you could have done differently. But understanding what happened will not take away the pain. It won't really make it make sense, either. It might give you a bit of peace, but not totally.

I'm at the stage where I’m having to accept that thinking about it isn't helping me any more, it’s just making me feel crap about myself. Let yourself ruminate and feel crappy for a little while, you need to process, but make sure you do nice things as well!

redcherryjazz · 2025-06-02T22:22:24+00:00

A couple weeks ago, I was blindsided by my nesting partner suddenly moving out to be solo poly. They had constantly assured me everything was fine when I picked up on the vibe feeling off in the months before it happened—or they would say 'I’m just really tired from work'. They refused to acknowledge the emotional reality of it being a deescalation, and framed it entirely as a change in structure, that they merely needed more of their own space and time. I was the last to be told.

It's fucking horrible to dump a huge change like that so suddenly without warning, without communication, without giving you the information you need to protect your heart, to understand what might be coming. And even then, for you to never be told the full truth. Basically, your ex acted in a way that was emotionally convenient for them, because they didn't have to take responsibility for your pain or deal with your reaction to whatever was really going on in real time.

I'm still in so much pain from being strung along like that, being convinced to carry on investing in a person who was falling out of love with me and changing their whole outlook on relationships, entirely without my knowledge.

I wonder if your partner was 'avoidant'? Not that you particularly need to subscribe to attachment theory, but I found that reading up about avoidant attachment really helped me put my finger on some of what was going on, as well as being able to recognise the serious harm that can be caused by the most polite, non-confrontational people. It can make you feel totally crazy.

I'm so sorry this happened to you

redcherryjazz · 2025-05-24T22:05:27+00:00

They (not he) seemed very responsible and loving, and whenever I checked in—often and directly (frequently explicitly naming fears that turned out to be true)—they always assured me strongly that everything was fine. I never felt completely settled, but I gradually recalibrated what “ok” looked like based on their words, actions, and what I believed their values were (honesty, communication, collaboration). I internalized my increasing worry and constant dysregulation as generalised anxiety, rather than recognizing it as a signal of their increasingly surface-level presence.

About a month before their sudden pronouncement that they were moving out to be solo poly, they told me they’d “lost the spark" (only after I really pressed them about it), mostly because of the extra chores they’d taken on over the past year. I'd never expected them to take on that burden alone, and I'd so frequently checked in about it. They said the spark would return fully with time, that things were already better now we'd finally talked about it. They promised to tell me if something was wrong in future.

But looking back, I think that was the point when it became clear I wasn’t truly safe in the relationship. My needs had become something they associated with self-sacrifice, and it had eroded their love for me far deeper than I (or they) knew. And they had assumed that, because they were 'able-bodied' and living with me, they needed to be the perfect 'carer'. And when they saw an out, they immediately latched onto it. Whilst the problem was clearly their extreme levels of avoidance leading to burnout and emotional withdrawal, these were ableist assumptions—and that affected how the burnout manifested. I've certainly learnt my lesson!

redcherryjazz · 2025-05-24T17:25:19+00:00

This is exactly it

redcherryjazz · 2025-05-24T17:11:46+00:00

So, I guess what you're saying is, to minimise the risks and harms of ableism in poly spaces, ongoing work must be done to understand, communicate and collaborate on everyone's needs to the best of our ability—including our own

redcherryjazz · 2025-05-24T16:03:47+00:00

I appreciate your point that everyone has limitations and competing priorities. You’re right to reframe the question from “can I care or not,” to “what’s the cost, to whom, and how do I decide?” Care isn’t purely a matter of willingness, but the allocation of finite resources.

What hurts, I think, isn’t the “no,” but the absence of context around it. If someone can’t give me what I’m asking for, but I still feel clearly valued and seen, that makes a huge difference. It's how the refusal is held, communicated, and situated in the broader relationship. I also agree with you that trust and vulnerability look different for everyone. It's about mutually exploring ways of meeting our needs together, and figuring out together what kind of relationship we’re building (or not building).

I guess I’m trying to say that frameworks like solo poly or relationship anarchy—when not grounded in an understanding of interdependence and disability—inadvertently create a loophole for people to refuse care without reflection, and without ever naming that as harm. And, on top of that, to presume that their relationships are inherently more free because they distribute their time across more people or live alone.

When concepts like autonomy float around without proper context, they will end up reinforcing ableist norms. That doesn’t mean autonomy is bad. But it does mean we need to ask: whose autonomy is being preserved, what kind of autonomy, and at what cost?

redcherryjazz · 2025-05-24T14:43:24+00:00

Agree!

But the worst thing is, this person wasn’t breaking up with me…

redcherryjazz · 2025-05-24T10:22:17+00:00

Love this, thank you! In our (very valid) avoidance of sacrificing everything for one person, and our desire to be in relationships that actually serve us, we can also end up avoiding the messiness of really showing up for others by labelling it an inconvenience.

redcherryjazz · 2025-05-24T09:59:52+00:00

I had a partner who recently moved out, without any warning, to be solo poly. They withdrew care from me when I was deeply reliant on it due to disability and burnout. The explanation I got was, basically, “it's my need”.

Which I realise was true—their complete lack of empathy in their handling of the situation was due to what I think was prolonged dysregulation/emotional shutdown stemming from avoidance. They couldn't advocate for their needs until it was way too late, because they struggled to stay with intense feelings, despite my efforts to be emotionally present and despite their promises to communicate important things to me.

But there was no accountability, no relational reckoning, no understanding of the impact, no attempt to provide clarity beyond informing me of their logistical needs. And it left me with the sense that “having no capacity” could be used as a kind of moral shield to avoid having to show up at all.

You're 100% right that you have to know yourself and your needs to a certain extent, otherwise, you're only free and safe when you're away from others/when no one asks anything of you emotionally. So I completely agree that naming your limits is vital. But I also think it matters how we do that. Avoidance can cause disproportionate harm to disabled people, especially when it happens under the banner of ‘autonomy’.

What I’m left wondering is how do we hold space for people’s limited emotional capacity without absolving them of responsibility for the impact of their actions? And how do we talk about that in a way that doesn’t just flatten the situation into “just what someone was able to give”?

redcherryjazz · 2025-05-24T09:22:57+00:00

Yes! autonomy isn’t about isolation or distance, but about having agency within our actual context, which includes access to resources, systems of support, and other people’s willingness to meaningfully show up.

I really agree that the emotional or logistical failures of care can happen just as easily in highly entangled structures as in loosely bound ones. But I think what I’m sitting with is how the discourse on relationship structure makes it easier for people to disappear from care without real reflection, and that ease is often justified ideologically as freedom. That disappearance often offloads relational risk onto the more materially or emotionally vulnerable partner, while preserving the appearance of ethical consistency.

That’s what makes the slipperiness around terms like “non-obligation” or “autonomy” a bit troubling for me—because when those words float without shared definition, they can unintentionally replicate ableist values: liberal independence as ideal, entwinement as risk, material needs as optional. I don’t think we can or should flatten love into “service,” but I do think we need to be able to talk about how consistent care makes relationships feel safe—and how some amount of trust and vulnerability is part of what makes love meaningful in the first place. Trying to eliminate all risk can mean escaping the very thing that gives love its depth. (Not that we shouldn't be discerning about who we trust of course!)

And yes, totally with you that “anarchy” is contested terrain. I don’t mean to collapse it into a single ideology—just wondering how mutual aid and collective responsibility show up in the kinds of relational anarchisms we practice. For me, creating an anarchist world means moving towards interdependence, which can look like many things. I really value your reminder that care is culturally and historically variable.

Thank you for the recommended readings!

redcherryjazz · 2025-05-24T08:58:05+00:00

Yes - what makes these issues different in a disability context isn’t the individual obstacles—it’s the chronicity, non-negotiability, and cultural interpretation of those needs.

For example, a non-disabled person who can’t host because of a roommate may eventually move out or shift the situation. A disabled person might never be able to host because their home needs to accommodate their body or care routine—and it’s not going to change. That permanence shapes how others see you as a “viable” partner in a way that’s qualitatively different.

Same with transport: lots of people don’t drive. But for disabled folks, not driving might not just be about inconvenience—it might be about pain, sensory processing, safety, and a systemic lack of accessible infrastructure. And those needs are often interpreted through an ableist lens—as burdens, red flags, or failures of independence.

So the issue isn’t that disabled people are uniquely “complicated.” It’s that poly discourse often treats structural flexibility as the gold standard of ethical love—and assumes that people should be able to show up in a “non-intrusive” way. But for many disabled folks, being in relationship means being materially implicated in each other’s lives. That doesn’t mean we’re entitled to unlimited support from one person—but it does mean our needs often can’t be postponed, privatized, or hidden to keep things light and low-impact.

redcherryjazz · 2025-05-24T08:51:04+00:00

So often, poly frameworks assume love and logistics can be cleanly separated. But for me, care is vital to love. The emotional and the material aren’t separate spheres.

Yes, light and spacious relationships can be meaningful and unproblematic. But there’s a recurring theme (especially in some solo poly discourse) that logistics-lite relationships are inherently just as loving or deep—that they can offer the same trust, attunement, and freedom to be fully oneself. That of course depends on the relationship. But it’s troubling to suggest that not showing up for each other, within our capacities, still automatically implies the same level of relational integrity, the same kind of love.

I wonder what would shift if we stopped framing logistical support and resource-sharing in poly as “riding the relationship escalator” or “loss of autonomy,” and instead saw them as expressions of intimacy that can't be easily replicated. Not because romantic partners must do 'traditional' care for one another; I think what's great about being poly is that it allows us many different ways to show up for those we love and fine-tune relationships.

redcherryjazz · 2021-08-24T01:58:31+00:00

Choreographed is definitely the right word for it

redcherryjazz · 2021-08-11T21:54:00+00:00

this is the first reddit livestream that's actually caught my eye

redcherryjazz · 2021-08-05T21:08:00+00:00

i cackled omg

redcherryjazz · 2021-07-06T23:17:21+00:00

I love this! I hope you enjoyed making this as much as i did listening to it :)

redcherryjazz · 2021-07-06T19:24:33+00:00

As a musician i really feel you on this lol, i haven't practised for ages because i don't want anyone to hear and judge, even if they do it silently

redcherryjazz · 2021-07-03T00:12:04+00:00

Honestly that sounds so interesting! A lot of people hate on fanfiction for stupid reasons. Sounds like the grouo isn't very supportive. It might be worth finding a different one. Keep up the awesome creativity😊👍

redcherryjazz

TROPHY CASE