Tag: abuse

iamshadow21:

shinykari:

iamshadow21:

protectyourfanmily:

Andy Blake, better known on Tumblr as andythanfiction, is not at all what he seems. Presenting himself as a friendly, enthusiastic, artful member of the supernatural fandom, Andy would appear to be harmless and even comes off as extremely cool and likable. This could not be farther from the truth. Andythanfiction is a harmful, dangerous cult leader. Yes, for real. Cults still exist. I know, I was shocked, as well.

My intent in writing this post is twofold:

  1. Warn and protect the friends I made at DC Con
  2. Warn and protect the cast of Supernatural

I met Andythanfiction at the most recent Creation Ent. Supernatural Convention, in Washington DC, where he not only won the cosplay contest for Best Castiel, but also donned an extremely good Kevin Tran cosplay (pictured above) for most if not all of Friday and Sunday. He was delightful. He was impressive. He actually got Mark Sheppard to use props in a photograph. I liked him.

Earlier today, I remembered where I’d heard his name before. It wasn’t, as I’d suspected, from reading his Destiel meta. No. It was something far more sinister.

I remembered reading an article about a man who liked to flit from fandom to fandom, become popular and well liked, and slowly begin to draw in a “posse”. A group of friends. A following. And then proceed to use them,  leech them of their money and identity, take what he wanted from them, and when they began to catch wise, dump them out of his “protection” with no money, no friends outside the cult, and no idea of who they were without him.

I thought to myself that it couldn’t have been the Andy I met. And then I checked my blog. Not, as you’ll notice, this blog. And I found the post I’d been thinking of. I will not link it here, as to not endanger the author of the original ask post. They’re a dear friend of mine and the entire point of this post is to keep the people I love safe. But, I will copy the text of it, below.

Anonymous asked: who is that andy guy? what did he do? i never heard of him

I included a link in that post — though I’d say it’s probably best that if you haven’t heard of him, not to trouble yourself with reading into it. Unless you like reading about sociopaths and cult leaders. In that case, it might be considered an interesting read.

Suffice it to say he is a well-known destiel meta writer on tumblr and years ago he did some very awful things in another fandom, and I am worried for my own little SPN fandom. I am also vaguely worried about Misha, but I don’t think that one’s a very valid worry. You can read the information in the linked post for more information.

Go on and read the linked post. I’ll wait. While you’re there, feel free to click on the other posts that one links to. Trigger Warning for gaslighting, brainwashing, sexual assault, sexual abuse, cults, and emotional manipulation. If I have forgotten to warn for something, please do message me and I will append this paragraph.

The above post was written in October of 2013. At that point, Andy had not gone to any Supernatural conventions, and was still in the process of assimilating himself into our fanmily.

He has now begun to escalate, as he has done before. At this last convention, he was buddying up to Osric, and telling fans that Osric gave him his phone number. This is yet to be confirmed, but if he has, the situation is even more troubling.

Andy has been working on gaining the trust of not only Osric but of many fans of the show. One way he earns people’s trust is by playing the victim card. He then uses that trust to victimize others. If you doubt that he could, then he has probably gotten to you.

Because he’s likable. He really is. You may read the post above and think, “Wow, what a monster, I bet he’s actually really creepy.”

He is not. He is very good at what he does. If he was noticeably creepy, even to one’s intuition, people would not trust him, and he would not be a threat.

If you met him at the convention a couple of weeks ago, you may already like him. You may already consider him a friend. You may even be going to his Season Nine party, or traveling with him to San Diego con.

Do. Not.

Even if you tell yourself that you do not and will not trust him, do not go near him. Keep. Your. Distance. He will weasel his way past your guard just as soon as you’re not looking. He will find the cracks in your defenses and slip silently in through them and the next thing you know, he’ll be inducting you into his Posse and you’ll be telling yourself that he really isn’t so bad, and then I fear it will be too late for you.

He WILL play the victim. He WILL say that this and all other posts exposing him are unfair and ruining his life. He WILL refuse to own up that he is only ruining his OWN life by continuing to act this way and follow these patterns of behavior.  And if he DOES own up it will only be to say that he’s changed now. But do you see how his “friends” call themselves his “posse” now? How he refers to them as a herd?

By the way, none of this is to blame any of his friends. It is extremely important to remember is that they are not foolish people. They’re intelligent, good people. Do not think that by being “smarter” or “more careful” than them that you can avoid the harm that Andy inflicts on the people around him.

The ONLY way to avoid harm is to stay away from him. If you do know him, immediately do everything in your power to cut ALL contact with him.

Spread the word.

THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT AND COMPLETELY LEGIT POST.

Five or six years ago, thanfiction was in Harry Potter fandom. A good friend of mine was abused cruelly by him. She started out as a friend of his, and when she pulled back, his abusive behaviour escalated, to the point where her LJ was completely locked down, and he was using some of her best friends to spy on her private LJ posts which were then reposted and ridiculed by him and his followers. It took her ages to find thanfiction’s moles in her friendslist. I’ve seen some pretty horrific behaviour from people on the internet over the eighteen or so years I’ve been on it, but this was some of the worst.

Another friend of mine commissioned artwork from him for a fest she was running – he took her money, took forever to mail her the work, and when she did receive it, it was pretty much destroyed, inside the packaging. He blamed a friend who he ‘gave the art to to post for him’. My friend never received a refund.

thanfiction also tried to court me as a potential for his clique in this incredibly narcissistic comment on the final chapter of a story it took me a year to write. Luckily, I’d been a victim of abuse, both in real life and on the internet before, and after I shot him down in the politest way I could manage given the self-aggrandising tone of the comment, he never bothered to approach me again. (Had he properly done his homework on me, he would have known that my partner, kath-ballantyne, had been illustrating chapters of my story from the very beginning. While fanart is always a lovely compliment, in this case, it certainly wasn’t the irresistible lure he thought it would be.)

(Converting this to a text post rather than a photo post because I don’t want Andy’s stupid face on my blog.)

Your semi-regular reminder that Andrew Blake is an abusive, narcissistic sociopath who uses other fans and celebrities to further his own agenda.

And, wow the linked comment is just… wtf. “As someone who doesn’t really fancy slash” haha okay dude.

I know, right? You’ll notice that from the very first word, everything he says is about himself. I think what makes it all the more startling is that we’d never had a conversation before this comment. He’d never read or commented on one of my stories. He didn’t even have the ‘cover’ of showing interest as a friend. And he states right at the beginning, ‘I have not read your story and I never will’, and that begs the question. ‘Well, then why are you here? And I know exactly why. Allow me to demonstrate with a short reinterpretation of that comment to be slightly more honest.

Hey there. I see you wrote a story. I wrote a story and it’s big and it’s beautiful and it’s amazing, and I have heaps of people who love me and love it because, well, naturally. I deserve it. So, I notice you’ve got a lot of people reading your story. That’s nice. I want them, because I always need more followers, and they’re obviously misguided if they’re over here, reading your, whatever-it-is, when they could be reading my story and basking in my magnificence.

So, I’m going to offer you something of a present.

I’m going to make a gloriously generous offer that you’d be incredibly rude to turn down because I’m giving you fanart, and everyone loves and appreciates fanart, because fanart is like gold. Better, it’s my fanart, so it’s more like diamonds.

I’m going to make you a piece of fanart for a scene that you choose (awesome, because then you’re happy and I don’t have to read through however many words of your drivel to find something to inspire me). It costs me nothing but a bit of my time, and it’ll have the added bonus (original intention) of linking your dinky little story with ME. Then, every time one of your readers (adorable) looks at your… thing, they get a free advertisement to me! They have to think of me, because I’M THERE, IN YOUR STORY, EVEN THOUGH I HAD NO PART IN MAKING IT AND I HATE SLASH AND WILL NEVER READ IT. And because we’re now inextricably linked, your readers will flow to me and my magnificence like water flowing downhill, and what was yours will be mine – readers, credit for your creation, everything.

This is where you say thankyou. YOU’RE WELCOME.

If anyone reading this reads the original comment and thinks I’m inflating the weight and meaning of the approach thanfiction made, trust me, I am not. What he said and how he said it was CLASSIC GROOMING BEHAVIOUR. Grooming is a term very familiar to those of you out there who have personal or professional experience with child sexual assault. It’s the honeymoon period where an abuser flatters a mark, gives them gifts, tells them how special they are, before they escalate into isolation and assault. It is a very telling behaviour of intent and for those who know how to spot it, it is unmistakeable. Grooming is never about what the abuser can offer a mark, it’s about how they can best make a mark feel indebted to them, the classic ‘I gave you something you wanted, now you have to give me something I want.’ In the case of thanfiction, the only thing I had to offer him was access to the readers following my story. I wasn’t rich, I wasn’t a BNF, I wasn’t in the same country and I wasn’t emotionally or sexually available. So I didn’t take the lure, and I protected my readership as best I could by refusing his advances.

REBLOGGING DEC 2017 FOR CRITICAL ROLE FANDOM

For anyone wanting a refresher or evidence of my past interaction with thanfiction, here you go.

dear critical role fandom

ruffboijuliaburnsides:

ravenjeep2001:

kumquatwriter:

theteablogger:

ruffboijuliaburnsides:

amazonqueendianaprince:

cowboybootsandhuntershelper:

shadowedhills:

I noticed recently that I’ve passed what is, to me, a ridiculous number of followers, approximately ¾ of which have come since I got into Critical Role. I’m overwhelmed, and I love you all. Which is one of the reasons why I’m going to signal boost this.

I’ve recently heard that a fan who goes by the name Andy Thanfiction has gotten into CR fandom. If this is someone you’ve seen on Tumblr or Twitter, and his name is not familiar to you, I very, very, very highly encourage you to read at least one of the links below.

5 Incredible Sagas of Fandom Scams & Deceptions

Fandom History, Epic Wankers Edition: Victoria Bitter/Jordan Wood/Andy Blake

Thanfiction – Fanlore entry

I’ve been in online fandom for more than 20 years, and while I was never in contact with Andy, I watched both the LOTR and HP messes go down in real time. I’m a person who generally doesn’t do public callouts for fannish reasons – I can count the number of people I’d make a post like this about on one hand, and still have fingers left over. But we have a lot of younger fans in CR fandom, both in actual age and in terms of people who weren’t around for Andy’s greatest hits. So if you don’t already know him, please read about him, and be careful.

I do, in fact, know this man. I have for several years now. I have not deleted the information above, because everybody does have a right to be cautious. I can’t try and make your perception of a person for you.

But it is very upsetting to watch a fandom that has been so active and uplifting about battling mental illness hop right on the same train as the other communities who i have watched shut him out.

Andy has admitted everything he’s done. He has apologized. Not the bullshit kind of apology where he blames it on things being his control, or even his severe mental illness, but the kind where he accepts that he hurt people, is genuinely sorry, then as he changes his behavior away from what he did he /steps back from those people/ he hurt, because he knows they have a right to be hurt, and even as they continue lashing out he accepts it, doesn’t argue it anymore, because he honestly just wants to move on.

And I have watched him try to move on. I have watched him /continuously/ try to do better, and every time his past Big Fuckup is brought back up, it blows way the fuck up, and instead of railing against it he grits his teeth and steps willfully back from the something new that he had hoped he might be able to find a place in now that he’s got the mental stability to enjoy it as just a regular fan.

I have no right to speak for him, nor does anyone have the right to know how particular medical and psychological treatment program, nor which medications he’s talking Why would you ask that of /anyone,/ demand that they prove exactly how they’re “fit” to be part of society, ask them to reveal information that by all right should be kept between them and their doctor?

But I can say that he’s doing /everything/ we ask people who have hurt others in their mental illness to do. I can say that I have seen progress even just from where he was when we met four years to the man I know today. I can say that I am steadily watching him grow and learn and change and become a person who is learning that it’s /okay/ to proud himself and his admittedly incredible talent in spite of how badly his psychosis fucked both himself and many others over before.

I am by no means trying to invalidate the pain of the people who got hurt. They have every right to be upset, I understand that the impression he left them with is going to be with them forever. When I was younger and foolish I would argue with them about that, but I know better now.

I’m only saying that I hope at it’s core, this fandom doesn’t prove to have a double-standard in the way it treats mental illness. That it doesn’t prove to be one of those groups that talks a big game about providing support to overcome and change and battle mental illness, until said mental illness is too scary or presents in a way that you don’t like.

It’s hard. I know. There are some scary afflictions out there that make it difficult to grasp or understand people. But when we say that people are not defined by their mental illness, when we encourage people to fight it and change and get /better,/ we CAN NOT just apply that to the “easy ones.”

So in the end, all I’m asking is that you treat my friend – who had struggled and overcome and is /still/ fighting an uphill battle – with the same level of respect and trust you would address any stranger you’ve met so far who likes the same show you do. He’s excitable, he’s fascinated, and he wants to enjoy this Cool New Thing My Friend showed me.

I’m tired of watching him get shunted out of places where he belongs. I understand the fear though. Mental illness, especially those that affect others /is/ frightening. I had just hoped that if there was any group that could accept his changing, break the stigma fan communities have held over severe mental illness, and honestly just /enjoy/ the amazing creative content this boy churns out like butter at a state fair, it would’ve be Critical Role.

Oh my god, shut the fuck up. He’s not amazing and I don’t care what “amends” he’s trying to make. How DARE you try to guilt trip people into accepting a dangerous predator into fandom by pulling the mental illness card?

You want to talk respect? How about respect for his victims? No creative output can ever be so amazing that people should willingly accept someone like him in fandom. And nobody is entitled to be accepted in fandom. Not him. Not you. Not me. Not anyone. If he really wanted to make amends, he would stay AWAY from fandom, not keep participating in it.

You should be ashamed of yourself for writing this ridiculous bullshit defense.

#oh jesus the idea of him being in a fandom where people often break off into #like #fucking TABLETOP GROUPS #SMALL ISOLATED GROUPS OF PEOPLE DEEP INTO THE STORY THEY’RE CREATING TOGETHER #is fucking horrifying #nope nope nope nope #side note: everything this person writes sounds exactly like Andy #he has a history of defending himself using followers as mouthpieces #this is suspicious as hell #and getting moreso the more they post

Reblogging these tags because they make a very good point.

Also, I was IN the Bit of Earth community when most of the VB stuff went down.  I was friends with him.  And I probably would’ve gotten fucked over a whole lot more as a trusting, impusive, miserable-at-home young person if I’d had money or the ability to travel anywhere on my own.  And you know what I’ve noticed, following him over the years?

He has yet to actually change.  His STORY changes a lot, he changes what mental illnesses he’s struggling with to fit whatever is most sympathetic given everything people know, but that’s changed WILDLY over the years, and a number of people who actually HAVE most of those mental illnesses have called him into question, not because they dislike him but because his portrayal of that mental illness is SO different from what it’s actually like to live with it.

He has not changed his modus operandi much in the last decade+, though, is the main thing – he gets into a fandom, he gathers a bunch of young and/or vulnerable fans around him who look up to him as a creator and often a mentor of sorts, and when criticized, they leap to his defense, often using suspiciously similar wording to what Andy himself has said.  I’ve seen this happen OVER AND OVER AND OVER again.

So considering he doesn’t seem to have changed his actions, why in the WORLD should I believe he’s changed his motivations?

Sorry, but no – Andy Blake aka Thanfiction is an abuser and has been basically the leader of a cult of personality surrounding himself multiple times.  I’ve known him, and I’ve known people like him, and I don’t trust him as far as i could throw him, and I will ALWAYS recommend people be extremely wary of him at the absolute minimum.

One of the people involved in this exchange alerted me to it a few minutes ago. This is absolutely correct: Andy’s history of abuse is well documented and his methods have changed very little over the years. If anything, they’ve become a little subtler and more refined with every iteration of his cult of personality–but only a little.

The excuses that Andy’s friend makes above are the very same ones that Andy used to post in his fauxpologies, and that his friends parroted on his behalf. He’s so very talented! So tragically mentally ill! So misunderstood! So noble in his suffering! If only you and your fandom were willing to give him a chance, you’d see what an incredible, selfless person he really is! And if you don’t, you’re just a bunch of narrow-minded hypocrites.

I’m not going to pick this person’s post apart in great detail because other people have already called them out (thank goodness), but I just want to point out a few classic Andy excuses and deflections:

“I have not deleted the information above, because everybody does have a right to be cautious.”

Since the advent of the Andy awareness tumblrs, Andy has been fond of telling people that he isn’t trying to hide anything and that they have the right to know about his history. At the same time, he’s tried to discredit much of the information available about his past, and to portray anyone spreading the word as a “bitter ex”, a “hater”, a “stalker”, or some kind of bigot.

“Andy has admitted everything he’s done. He has apologized.”

Andy has made exactly one apology to a specific person who said that she was fully satisfied with it. Other than that, his “apology” posts have been riddled with excuses and half-truths, and have focused on his own alleged suffering as much as, if not more than, his abusive actions. Nevertheless, when he was still posting on tumblr, he liked to link to his previous “apology” posts whenever people called him out.

“…

even as they continue lashing out he accepts it, doesn’t argue it anymore, because he honestly just wants to move on.” 

This portrays the people Andy’s abused as being unable or unwilling to move on, as seething with hostility and needlessly continuing to rehash ancient history. He likes to say that his critics have no lives.

“…

every time his past Big Fuckup is brought back up, it blows way the fuck up, and instead of railing against it he grits his teeth and steps willfully back from the something new that he had hoped he might be able to find a place in now that he’s got the mental stability to enjoy it as just a regular fan.”

Here’s the thing: Andy’s abuse of other people has taken place in at least half a dozen fandoms over the course of nineteen years. Because of this, many of us have said that he needs to get the fuck out of fandom if he’s serious about changing and doing better. Even if we were to assume that he’s telling the truth about his mental illness, he still needs to stay out of fandom because he can’t seem to stop conflating himself with fictional characters. It’s not so long ago that he was talking about having “sense memories” of things that Bucky would have remembered from New York City in the ‘30s, that he ~couldn’t possibly have experienced~! Same shit, different day. He’s just more cautious about how he discusses these things now–he always leaves room for plausible deniability because he knows people are watching.

“I have no right to speak for him, nor does anyone have the right to know how particular medical and psychological treatment program, nor which medications he’s talking” 

That warning post made no mention of wanting to know Andy’s diagnosis, meds, or anything else. It didn’t mention mental illness at all. But this is one of Andy’s favorite talking points, so of course it’s coming up again. Yes, some Andy awareness bloggers have written a lot about the diagnoses that Andy has claimed to have (they’ve changed quite a bit over the last few years) because they don’t actually make any sense based on his behavior and what he says his symptoms are/were. And none of his claimed diagnoses explains or in any way excuses the fact that he is a serial abuser and admitted rapist who continues to try to insert himself into fan communities consisting mostly of much younger women and girls. But no one has demanded that he display proof of any diagnosis on paper, or show the labels on his drugs, or name his doctors. No one’s ever asked to see his “paperwork”, but Andy likes to act as if it happens constantly.

I could go on, but I think that’s more than enough. People need to stop enabling this asshole.

And the cycle continues to repeat! I WISH HE WOULD ACTUALLY CHANGE because this is BORING REPETITIVE BULLSHIT. And yeah, I’ve moved on. Once again I adapt a quote from the Skeptical OB – Andy is like a bug on my windshield. Long ago squashed but still occasionally visible.

And no, he has not actually apologized to me. He set up a situation that allowed him to say “I’m sorry for everything,” but that does not an apology make. Trust me, I’ve made plenty of sincere apologies. I know the difference between a real one and a load of bullshit.

The hypocrisy in this fandom never ceases to amaze me.  Every last one of you should be ashamed of yourselves.  This man has overcome mental illness and only wishes to move forward.  He did bad things.  He got help.  He got better.  He’s paid his debt to society and you all need to leave the man alone.  Let him get on with his life.

I will let Andy Blake get on with his life when he STOPS REPEATING THE SAME CYCLE OF ACTIONS AND ABUSE.

He has not yet done so, ergo I refuse to stop warning people about what he does. This has been going on for nearly TWO DECADES and it’s still happening in almost exactly the same way. The only thing he’s changed is the details of his sob story and the fandom he’s peddling it in.

What I think some people don’t realise is that for him, fandom isn’t escapism, it isn’t a joyous special interest that he’s entitled to engage in without censure. For him, each new fandom is a HUNTING GROUND. Each new person he meets is prey. For him, it isn’t about making friends. It’s about power, it’s about control, and it’s about manipulation. That’s what he enjoys. For you, you’re excited about the characters, the ships, the canon, the fic. For him, it’s about taking those things that you love and using them as a crowbar to insert himself into your life. He never values connections for the sake of themselves. They’re only about what he can get for himself from them, and he twists you round so much that you’ll empty your life of everything of value and give it to him just to bask in his favour, and won’t even realise how it happened. This is how people like him WORK. And to be honest, every new supporter that comes out of the woodwork to ‘defend’ him – there is a long line of literally hundreds of people that were saying exactly the same things as you not too long ago. The lucky ones got out with their worldview shifted, with a new-minted distrust. The others, well. I know one who forgoes fandoms althogether now. Others lost money, good friends, living situations, joy in something they used to love. Some got taken for all they were worth, got doxxed, got dogpiled. Some got assaulted. Three people wound up dead. I look at the people defending him, and to be honest, my hope is you get out alive.

Note to my ex.

wambamanxiousman:

punkpoemprose:

marvelousmacey:

iamfrenchfrie:

mieshasmoore:

iamchinyere:

Today my professor told me every cell in our entire body is destroyed and replaced every seven years. How comforting it is to know that one day I will have a body that you will have never touched.

This just made me feel so warm.

thank you.

Important especially for victims of abuse, remember your body is yours and it heals in more ways than you realize.

Okay, so I just want to say that this isn’t necessarily true. Most of your cells have died and regrown several times in seven years, but some haven’t, and some have died and won’t return. The seven year cell renewal is a myth perpetuated by popsci in magazines everywhere.

That being said, anywhere they may have touched you, your skin, your hair, your nails and so on, was changing the moment they departed your life, even before that. Your skin became skin they’ve never touched within 27 days. Your hair grows (on average) six inches per year, so depending on how long yours is, you were rid of their touch there within a few years tops. Your nails will completely regrow within six months tops. You were a body they never touched within three or four years. You will be a body they never touched within three or four years.

You have been rewriting your body, you are your own, you are constantly changing, and you are the only one who owns your body 100% of the time.

I’m here for correcting science myths in supportive ways.

strangerdarkerbetter:

sparklyredflower:

meeresfem:

hobbitsaarebas:

gothiccharmschool:

biwomensupport:

voidbat:

stimmyabby:

You don’t have to be grateful that it isn’t worse.

read that.

read it again, and again, and again.

somebody, somewhere, always has it worse than you. there is one person on this planet that has it the worst of all, and that person is NOT the only person allowed to be unhappy with their lot.

if things are bad for you, they are bad for you. period.

This goes for trauma as well. A lot of times survivors get trapped in a cycle of  minimizing/diminishing their trauma because “other people have it worse” – but there is no hierarchy of trauma. There is no ranking system for which traumas are “better” or “worse.” Your trauma is valid. Period.

IMPORTANT TRUTHS.

As a therapist, lemme just say: almost every trauma survivor I’ve ever had has at some point said “But I didn’t have it as bad as some people” and then talked about how other types of trauma are worse. Even my most-traumatized, most-abused, most psychologically-injured clients say this. 

The ones who were cheated on, abandoned, and neglected say this. The ones who were in dangerous accidents/disasters say this. The ones who were horrifyingly sexually abused say this. The ones who were brutally beaten say this. The ones who were psychologically tortured for decades say this. What does that tell you? That one of the typical side-effects of trauma is to make you believe that you are unworthy of care. 

Don’t buy into it, because it’s nonsense. It doesn’t matter if someone else had it “worse.” Every person who experiences a trauma deserves to get the attention and care they need to heal from it. 

“one of the typical side-effects of trauma is to make you believe that you are unworthy of care.”

SO true.

@strangerdarkerbetter Not sure if you’ve seen this, but I thought of you when I read this. Don’t forget to take care of yourself today. 🙂 ❤

@sparklyredflower Thank you ❤

Learning this is a continual process that I have to reinforce daily.

strangerdarkerbetter:

Cure promises wholeness even as the world pokes and prods, reverberating beneath our skin, a broken world giving rise to broken selves.

         All my life, I’ve rebelled against the endless assumptions that my body-mind is broken. I’ve resisted. I’ve ranted. I’ve turned my back on brokenness. Occasionally I’ve tried redefining wholeness to include that which is collapsed, crushed, or shattered. But mostly I’ve just flat-out refused brokenness and the perceptions of weakness, vulnerability, and tragedy that come with it.

                          I dream of a big pottery bowl painted in intricate patterns.

         But however much I refuse and, in those refusals, tell an important truth, I have to say: I am also profoundly broken. My father and the cell of perpetrators to which he belonged shattered my body-mind. The violence they inflicted winds through me. I could quibble over words and call myself damaged. But the starker, blunter broken calls to me. It speaks of fragments and shards, an irrevocable fracturing. And fracture me they did, using sexual violence, physical violence, and mind control that I can only describe as torture. I won’t write the details or try to capture the terror and pain in words. But believe me: what they did broke my body-mind. It shaped every part of my life. This is not hyperbole, not a claim to perpetual victimhood nor a ploy for sympathy, but rather an enraging truth.

                               I turn the bowl in my hands, lose myself in its patterns.

         Twenty years ago I walked through the world detached from body-mind and emotion, skittish, fearful of human touch, hearing voices and seeing shadows, plotting suicide. When it became clear that I had to deal with this damage or end up dead, all I wanted was to be cured.

The ideology of cure would have us believe that whole and broken are opposites and that the latter has no value.

         I spent years in therapy and bodywork. I practiced self-care and built a support network. I found community. I dug into shame. I helped organize Take Back the Night marches, put together rape prevention trainings, wrote about child abuse. I never spoke directly about my desire for a cure, but really I felt desperate to fix my broken self, to emerge into a place where the twenty-four years of torture I experienced as a child and young adult simply no longer existed. I spent nearly a decade working hard at recovery—recovering lost years, memories, selves—before I knew that I’d never be cured.

                                                           Slowly, slowly the bowl reveals itself—

                                                               shattered and pieced back together.

         My relationship to that violence is different now—my sense of self less fractured; my ability to stay in my body-mind and in the present, stronger. Yet I am nowhere near finished with its aftermath. Not long ago, paper skeletons hanging in the window of a local restaurant triggered an old memory of torture, catapulting me into a week-long dissociative fugue. Three summers ago, suicide gripped me hard, voices filling my head, seductive and terrifying. I didn’t leave the house for a month.

          Those intricate patterns—a spider web of fractures, cracks, seams.

         I’m grateful that triggers and hallucinations don’t grab me in their vice grip nearly as often as they used to. Even so, I know the past will again pound through my body-mind. The voices will again scream in my head, owning me, commanding me to kill myself, self-loathing carved into my synapses. I’ve come to know that there will be no cure. I claim brokenness to make this irrevocable shattering visible.

                                              Splashes of sunlight filter through the cracks.

         There will be no return to the moment before my father first grabbed my body-mind.

           Cure dismisses resilience, survival, the spider web of fractures, cracks, and seams. Its promise holds power precisely because none of us want to be broken. But I’m curious: what might happen if we were to accept, claim, embrace our brokenness?  

[Source: Eli Clare, Brilliant Imperfections: Grappling With Cure]

Broken. 

I am broken. 

These words pulse in my mind like the beating of my heart. 

Broken body. Broken mind. 

Broken sense of safety. 

Violation. 

I have been shattered like a bowl slipped through loose fingers crashing to the ground. 

Six years ago, I was a pile of broken shards scattered at the feet of the men who had harmed me. 

Slowly, through the help of other broken people, I have began to piece the shards back together. 

My pieces no longer lay scattered. 

I have pieced myself back together. 

But the cracks still show. 

I have not been made whole but rather am a jigsaw puzzle pieced together. Clear lines showing between the pieces. 

The traumas of my past live on in me. The damage is still visible. 

Broken.

I am broken.

Words that once carried shame and agony. 

Now these words pulse with a different energy. 

I am broken, yes. This is undeniable. Yet, in my brokenness, I have grown stronger. In my brokenness, I have found new purpose and meaning. 

When the pieces of my shattered self came back together, they formed not what I was before, but something new. 

There is no going back to who I was before, nor do I wish to do so. 

I am better than I was, cracks and brokenness and all. 

It is from that brokenness that I have crafted a self that I can be proud of. 

A more compassionate self. 

A more passionate self. 

A more understanding self. 

A stronger self. 

paperdollsandhyperbole:

This is a social story, what many autistics in the 80s were “trained” to think to appear neurotypical at all costs

Some background information you need to know:

Social stories are still used today but back in the 80s it was like social stories on steroids. They were drilled into our heads, act “normal” at all costs. I know my parents were particularly keen on this. I went from special Education classes where they knew I was autistic and visually impaired, when we moved my parents took advantage of that to mainstream me and not pass my health information along to the new school. Social stories became all that more important. Must. Act. Normal. At. All. Costs.

Being autistic was treated like it was something to be ashamed of and that is a thought pattern that is hard to break to this day.

Growing up in the 80s and 90s with autism was very much the “quiet hands movement”, (https://juststimming.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/quiet-hands/ good article!) which is to say we were silenced and punished if we stimmed. (For allistic people The term “stimming” is short for self-stimulatory behavior and is sometimes also called “stereotypic” behavior. In a person with autism, stimming usually refers to specific movements that include hand- flapping, rocking, spinning, pen clicking, desk tapping, beatboxing or repetition of words and phrases amongst others.“)

Stimming can mean we are happy or stressed or angry or any other array of emotions. Stimming is not a universal trait and no too autistic people stim the same.

It was also the land of Applied Behaviour Analysis (refered to as ABA for the duration of this post) where any stimming or “undesired behaviours” were squashed out of you as quickly as possible and replaced with “desired behaviours”.

Every night before bed, we would go through the story of how to behave like a neurotypical person. Social stories began before I could read, at first they were pictures. Pictures of faces and facial expressions I couldn’t see or understand.

Location: lunchroom table, 4 of your friends or at least people who are semi-nice to you and a new girl. You know you should follow the steps to make the new kid not think you’re “weird”.

Get your lunch, resist slapping your hands down the rows of cubbies.

Sit down

Don’t rock

Don’t hum or tap your fingers

Get out your lunch

Don’t rock

Look at the new girl, in the eyes even though it feels bad

Smile

Don’t rock

Don’t pull your sandwich apart, normal people take bites

Don’t rock

Join in the conversation, even though they are all talking at once and bouncing between different subjects and when you finally think of something to say, it was 3 subjects ago and you feel dumb

Don’t squint because the overhead lights feel like you are standing too close to the sun.

Don’t rock

Also, don’t cover your ears because the lights buzz and the clock is loud (normal people don’t hear it) and everyone is talking at once and it’s loud and people’s lunch wrappers are crinkling.

Don’t wrinkle your nose at all the smells of everyone’s lunches mixed together with the smell of pinesol cleaner

Don’t rock

Don’t talk in big words you just learned, that isn’t normal, they don’t like that

Don’t touch your clothes, quiet hands, sit on them. Don’t touch the table or walls or other people.

Don’t look relieved that lunch is over.

Go to the library instead of outside. It’s safe there because there is no one but the librarian and she is nice and doesn’t talk or make me talk.

So that is a social story, that is what runs through my head at every interaction with another person. The situation changes but it runs through my head. Still.

It’s exhausting, continuous stream of orders. But I’ve been trained like a dog that was whacked with a newspaper when it did something bad that acting “normal” is paramount to anything else.

And it is virtually impossible to crack, let alone break.

lbibliophile:

Just like Slughorn, Albus Dumbledore collects people. Only, instead of focusing on those with influence, he looks to the outcasts.

The expelled half-giant.
The young werewolf.
The repentant Death Eater.

He protects them and gives them a second chance. All he asks in return is their loyalty.

And, if on occasion he requests that they undertake a certain task, invoking their debt of gratitude – well, that is no more than he is owed.

He once thought to add a certain disowned Black to his collection, but quickly realised his mistake.

Sirius is not an outcast, but a rebel. He knowingly chose his path, and chooses what price he is willing to pay for it. He refuses to be used.

So Albus Dumbledore abandons him.