*plays assassins creed to study for my ap history exam*
This is actually really funny. In high school my humanities teacher told us a story about one of the Europe trips he had gone on with the school a few summers past. So him and the group of kids were in the middle of Rome and the tour guide had gotten lost. They could figure out how to get to some church they were going to see. All of a sudden one of the students like call attention to himself. He says he knows where to go and just start walking around the streets, taking back roads and side streets and within 20 mins they’re at the church they needed to get to. My teacher asks the kid if he has every been to Italy before. He says no, he just knew where to go because he played Assassins Creed Brotherhood.
I don’t know all the reasons why I like dark things, and I don’t think I need to know them all, but… I was just looking at the blog of that person who said I “dehumanize and fetishize” gay men, and I saw that he was quite young (15) and his blog was all full of pastel colors and references to his mental illness and something dawned on me that I hadn’t thought about in a Tumblr context at all.
Part of my PTSD is about experiences I had in hospitals, and because of that one of my triggers is… not pastels, all by themselves, but like… have you ever stayed in a hospital as a kid? And everything is covered in soothing soft colors and all the nurses wear scrubs with like… cute animal drawings on them and everyone talks in a sing-song voice and reassures you things won’t hurt when they OBVIOUSLY will and you’d rather they tell the truth, accept that you have good reasons to be scared, and get it the hell overwith?
Yeah, I think I just figured out why those kids’ blogs give me a weird tingly feeling of creeping dread.
And I think I figured out, also, where my intense leeriness of “safe spaces” and trigger warnings comes from too–even though as a person with PTSD I’m supposed to want them.
It’s because in my experience, people who were trying to make me feel safe were LYING. They were lying because it was in their interest–in mine, too, but in theirs–for me to feel calm and soothed. For me not to feel despair, or anger, or blind screaming rage.
…Is it any wonder I like the stories where the people with the knives and the cruel smiles and the mind games are blatant about it? Or that I might want a few knives of my own, even though I have no desire to hurt anyone who isn’t going to get off on it?
I don’t want those kids to not need safety.
I want them to stop pretending safety looks the same for everyone.
Yes, this.
When people tell me “You’re safe,” I don’t think of Helpful Adult saving me from the monsters under the bed. I think of my teachers, saying the people who hurt me would never do such a thing, and I should stop lying because I was perfectly safe. I think of the people who used to hug me until my lungs wouldn’t fill and my ribs creaked, and got away without a whisper of a reprimand. Because they were pretty and soft, and I was cold and harsh.
That’s not safe, to me. That’s the most dangerous place in the world, because the people who live there will do anything- anything at all- if it means they don’t have to acknowledge how nasty their walled garden has really gotten. Because if I defend myself, they can’t pretend anymore. And they sure as hell won’t defend me.
THIS.
This is exactly why I don’t like these “catered for children” environments. It doesn’t make you feel safe - proper anesthesia and communication with the doctors is what makes you safe. I remember having huge problems with the dentist, until one noticed and started describing, as they do in the movies with the coroners, every step, and giving me the understanding of how much longer I have to wait. Like “Ok, this step is uncomfortable, but quite long, I will be cleaning the channel walls. Three steps to go, about half an hour overall. Next step can be quite painful, but very fast. Ready? Go! *removes the nerve, the pain is severe, but now I know it won’t be long, and it is so - the pain subsides in seconds, before knowing exactly that it would seem to last for ages, and I wouldn’t know what’s going on and what’s worse, when will all this torture by pain and boredom end, maybe there’s more pain to endure* now, that was the last painful procedure, now I will fill up the channel, that’s fast, and then we will form the head of the tooth, that’s slow but not painful at all, ok?
After that, I started demanding the same from every dentist, and as it turns out, they actually like doing that, it seems. Breaks the monotony of the work, allows you to basically recite verbally steps instead of playing it quiet and professional, and they love when people take interest in their work.
