Comic Book Review: The Chill story by Jason Starr, art by Mick Bertilorenzi
It’s 2009 in New York City and a series of bizarre ritual killings has hit the city. The obvious suspect is a woman named Ariana who’s been seen with more than one of the victims, but no one can agree on a description of her beyond that she’s extremely attractive. Police Detective Pavano is approached by an Irish cop…
It is 1979, and Morwenna Phelps is no longer blessed with a living twin. The same accident shattered her hip and leg so that she cannot run or dance, or even exist without pain. Her beloved grandfather had a stroke, and cannot care for her, and her mother is broken in…other ways. So she ran away and Child Services got involved. Which is why she’s now in the…
(image descriptions and text transcript under the cut)
first image: a pixellated, messy drawing of a person with chin length hair smiling wearily, shown from the shoulders up. behind the black line art of the person is a white crinkled paper texture. the background of the image is a gradient from faint red at the top to light gray at the bottom. there is handwritten all-capitalized text surrounding the person that reads, “why are you afraid of your own child? mom and dad? it’s only a joke, right? you’re just joking aren’t you? mom? dad?” the text becomes increasingly messy and spills off the edges of the picture.
second image: the first image, with overlaid details in two shades of red. the person’s face is scribbled out in bright red. there is messy handwritten text written sideways in the same shade of red on either side of the person’s head. the text on the left reads “take some responsibility”, and the text on the right reads “clean up your own mess”. above the person’s head is handwritten text in a darker shade of red that reads “you did this to yourselves”, and over the person’s scribbled out face is similar text that reads “and to me”. all of the text is capitalized.
second image: the first image, with overlaid details in two shades of red. the person’s face is scribbled out in bright red. there is messy handwritten text written sideways in the same shade of red on either side of the person’s head. the text on the left reads “take some responsibility”, and the text on the right reads “clean up your own mess”. above the person’s head is handwritten text in a darker shade of red that reads “you did this to yourselves”, and over the person’s scribbled out face is similar text that reads “and to me”. all of the text is capitalized.
third image: the same as the second image, but the background is now a blurry mix of black and dark red. the darker background makes the red text easier to discern and makes the black text more difficult to see.
fourth image: the same as the third image, except the red details are smudged vertically.
to anyone suffering from psychological, and/or emotional abuse, and to anyone who has escaped that abuse and is now dealing with the effects:
it can be easy to downplay your experiences. however, mental and emotional health is no less important than physical health, and abuse that targets your mind and heart should be taken just as seriously as any other abuse. you are worth more than your abuser(s) made you out to be! you deserve love, positive attention, safety, and gentleness.
hi. if you’re a young person or teenager who happens to be following me: write it down! keep a secret diary, a notepad, a blog your parents don’t have access to. write it down. keep a record somehow.
when i was a little kid and both my dad & i were being actively abused by my mom, he was familiar enough w her gaslighting that he instructed me at elementary school age to write down all the horrible things she did/said to me. it would be useful in court when custody was being argued and it would be useful to ME, years later, when my mom would try and convince me none of it happened. i had the proof, often word for word, that it did–and there was no hope in convincing my mom but a lot of hope in convincing myself and holding my stance against her. it was pivotal to advocating for myself and my feelings and eventually leaving her in my dust!
write it down!!! it’s so frustrating to have to deal with this bullshit, whether your parents are outright abusive or just fucking toxic/dysfunctional assholes. but you can do something for yourself and your mental health and that something is writing it down.
Yeah bury it in a box in the woods and write in it once a month if you have to, but write that shit down. I wish to fuck I had.
[Image caption for original post: bus on a road by a cliff meme, with the sad guy facing the cliff labeled “people remembering their childhoods”, and the cheery guy facing the open view labeled “their moms being like ‘that’s not how I remember it’.” End caption.]
please remember that you are the only person that gets to decide that your trauma doesn’t/shouldnt affect you anymore. nobody is allowed to say your pain is gone but you. nobody is allowed to decide you’re over your trauma/abuse but you. you are not obligated to forgive your abuser. you are not obligated to be around them if they are part of your family and you are CERTAINLY not obligated to be kind to them. as soon as they hurt you like that they lost the right to have your love, your kindness, your forgiveness, or your time. remember you don’t have to sacrifice your health for their comfort.
it’s bullshit opening up to people that have never experienced abuse about yours because i always get “haha well u can’t hate ur parents they’re the reason ur alive uwu !!” like yeah they’re also the reason i’ve tried to kill myself theresa but ok go off i guess
hey y’all wanna talk about a lesser talked about trauma effect?
loss of autonomy.
not knowing how to do anything without explicit permission or instruction.
feeling like you’ll get in trouble if you do anything on your own will.
waiting until you’re given permission to do so much as eat.
not feeling like your body is your own.
if you experience this you aren’t broken or alone. you were abused and traumatized and conditioned to be like this. remember you belong to nobody but yourself. you are and will be okay.
It’s weird to think that there’s people who are constantly, at-all-times, 100% comforted by/trusting of their parents,, like Who are you? Why aren’t you scared they’ll hurt you?
I’ve gotta say, I wound up somehow being shown two whole articles about how Sad it is to be estranged from your kids on Mother’s Day and man were those WEIRD to read
Like, yes. I am SURE it is painful to not be contacted by someone who cut you off, who you had no reciprocal interest in cutting off, on a day when everyone else is fuzzily celebrating connection.
But if someone you raised for eighteen fucking years won’t even talk to you, lady, consider please that they must feel very hurt, and why that might be and what it might be about.
Vague “I know I carry fault because I didn’t know what I was doing” doesn’t seem like that, at least not to me. It may be true, but… there are a LOT of people in your life who aren’t going to be close with you, who you hoped would. That’s how things work. No one is REQUIRED to establish or maintain a bond with anyone.
You’re not entitled to it.
You may have grown and changed from the hurtful person you seem to admit having been. That’s an accomplishment, if so!
But I don’t think you’re in the place you should be until you understand that while you’re absolutely allowed to want that person’s time and attention and to be a total emotional wreck because you don’t have it… you’re not entitled to it.
If you can start there, you’re truly on your way.
I’m not exactly opposed to anything in this post, and really I agree with everything in it at face value, but… It kind of bothers me that I’ve long perceived a sort of double standard – in most spaces I’m around but particularly on Tumblr, the nexus of a sort of radical children’s-rights-ism – where (adult) children are allowed to cut off their parents but parents aren’t allowed to cut off their (adult) children. Or to put it another way, when a parent cuts off a child, it’s by default the parent’s fault, and when a child cuts off their parent, it’s also by default the parent’s fault (as is strongly implied in the OP).
I don’t want to speak for Fierceawakening here, so I won’t, but how many people could we imagine expressing those exact same views but with the roles reversed (leaving out the specifics of Mother’s Day)? I can’t imagine many.
Obviously I’m completely against parents cutting off their children while they’re still growing up or even when they’re early in emergent adulthood (this spring semester I had one student whose father severed all ties with her in the middle of the semester, and I was telling someone about this and we were agreeing that there’s really no conceivable justification for cutting off your kid in the middle of college unless you discover that they’re the Tinder Swindler or something). It is not okay to cut off your offspring when they’re still dependent on you, just because (I suppose?) you don’t like their choices or “lifestyle” or something.
But, a lot of the people I know of my age are more financially secure than their parents are (and yes, I know the generational trend goes the other way, but that’s far from absolute), and/or they’re considerably healthier and/or generally more able. Just because there’s a massive, massive power differential between parents and growing children, a dynamic that many parents abuse, doesn’t mean that the power differential remains operative between those relations for life.
The OP is right about considering the possibility that you badly hurt someone if they feel the need to cut you off despite close family ties (while I think at the same time we’d agree that you shouldn’t automatically blame yourself when someone else cuts off a relationship), but I don’t see why that shouldn’t apply in general between close, fully grown-up family members.
Sorry if I’m hijacking this by injecting a new element that wasn’t part of the feeling behind the OP, it’s just an aspect of the issue that I find myself noticing and thinking about from time to time.
I got out of a very abusive, controlling relationship a few years ago with very little money to my name and moved back in with my parents. I’ve been saving to get an apartment, which is about $1100-1300/month here, ever since. I got a job that allowed me to save up, but I was also relentlessly harassed, bullied, overworked, and sexually assaulted to the point where I had a series of mental breakdowns that ultimately led me to quit.
I lost my new boyfriend a few years later due to my father’s interference. My father doesn’t want me here. Before I moved home he actually hadn’t spoken to me in three years, because my previous boyfriend was black. He says I deserve all the abuse “that n*gger” put me through, which included complete alienation of all my friends, complete control and exploitation of my finances, brief homelessness, and the death of my child. He tried to throw me out a month into dating my new boyfriend because “he can put you up now.” Between my job and my father, I was always stressed and miserable, and my boyfriend couldn’t take it. Then he got cancer, and told me he couldn’t deal with my problems on top of his own, he couldn’t take my father anymore, and we couldn’t do this anymore. We broke up. All his friends, even the ones who were supposedly my friend too, sided with him.
I lost a tooth at the beginning of the pandemic, right in the front of my face. It was a crown that had broken. I can’t afford to fix it - I need an extraction of the remaining tooth and an implant, which is $6k total. I only have Medicaid, which the oral surgeon doesn’t take and which doesn’t cover implants anyway. My self esteem tanked.
I don’t have any friends. I’m autistic and have never been great at making them in the first place, and wasn’t able to repair the friendships I lost because of my ex. I don’t talk to my extended family, who my father has been telling for years that I’m an ungrateful, horrible bitch he wishes he never had. They agree with him. Talking to my mother is like talking to a brick wall. She’s so burnt out putting up with my father’s abuse that she can’t even pretend to be a support for me. She never has been anyway.
Most of the time I feel like a glitch in a computer program. I’m not supposed to be here, so people ignore me until I cause problems (whether I actually did or not). No one cared when I was being abused by my ex, even when I came to work crying every day and couldn’t afford to eat. No one said anything in my defense when I was being harassed at work, and after I was assaulted HR told me it was all in my head when I’d report things like “Joe and Brian are telling people they fucked me in the stock room.” Sometimes I’ll vent on social media - both where I know people and where I’m anonymous - and get no response, except maybe “stop saying xyz about people, be grateful for what you have.” I had to delete Facebook because it added to my depression.
I can’t hold a job anymore. I’m terrified of people and being outside. I recently got a freelance gig doing transcription but the pay is very low and only per minute of audio, and I suffer from migraines which makes it difficult. I’ve posted on social media that I can also do editing and proofreading, with no takers. My health has always been very poor and my mental health is trash. No therapist near me takes Medicaid and I’m afraid to go out and talk to one anyway. I’ve been denied state assistance, though I was recently approved for food stamps. I can’t get cash assistance. I’m burning through all of my savings with student loans (which apparently can’t be put on hold because they’re all private) and the rent my dad demands.
On top of all this, my mother just told me she’s divorcing my dad, because he’s abusive and cheats constantly. She’s disabled and won’t be able to keep the house so she’s moving out. She’s the only reason I’ve been able to stay here. I’m pretty sure my father will kick me out, or tell me I can only stay if I become the maid and yard caretaker. He’s already trying to sell my car (which he had to put in his name because my ex destroyed my credit), which will leave me trapped in the house, and my mother has made it clear I can’t move in with her.
My cousins all have their lives figured out. They’re all married with kids, as I’m constantly being reminded of, with their own houses or apartments and good jobs. They’re not afraid of people, or struggling with money, or having a panic attack at 1am on a Wednesday because they don’t know how they’re going to get through the next week, let alone the next year. It feels like the cat is the only one on my side and the only one who actually wants anything to do with me. Ten years ago my father called me a failure as a daughter, an adult, and a human being, and it’s just… true.
I got out of a very abusive, controlling relationship a few years ago with very little money to my name and moved back in with my parents. I’ve been saving to get an apartment, which is about $1100-1300/month here, ever since. I got a job that allowed me to save up, but I was also relentlessly harassed, bullied, overworked, and sexually assaulted to the point where I had a series of mental breakdowns that ultimately led me to quit.
I lost my new boyfriend a few years later due to my father’s interference. My father doesn’t want me here. Before I moved home he actually hadn’t spoken to me in three years, because my previous boyfriend was black. He says I deserve all the abuse “that n*gger” put me through, which included complete alienation of all my friends, complete control and exploitation of my finances, brief homelessness, and the death of my child. He tried to throw me out a month into dating my new boyfriend because “he can put you up now.” Between my job and my father, I was always stressed and miserable, and my boyfriend couldn’t take it. Then he got cancer, and told me he couldn’t deal with my problems on top of his own, he couldn’t take my father anymore, and we couldn’t do this anymore. We broke up. All his friends, even the ones who were supposedly my friend too, sided with him.
I lost a tooth at the beginning of the pandemic, right in the front of my face. It was a crown that had broken. I can’t afford to fix it - I need an extraction of the remaining tooth and an implant, which is $6k total. I only have Medicaid, which the oral surgeon doesn’t take and which doesn’t cover implants anyway. My self esteem tanked.
I don’t have any friends. I’m autistic and have never been great at making them in the first place, and wasn’t able to repair the friendships I lost because of my ex. I don’t talk to my extended family, who my father has been telling for years that I’m an ungrateful, horrible bitch he wishes he never had. They agree with him. Talking to my mother is like talking to a brick wall. She’s so burnt out putting up with my father’s abuse that she can’t even pretend to be a support for me. She never has been anyway.
Most of the time I feel like a glitch in a computer program. I’m not supposed to be here, so people ignore me until I cause problems (whether I actually did or not). No one cared when I was being abused by my ex, even when I came to work crying every day and couldn’t afford to eat. No one said anything in my defense when I was being harassed at work, and after I was assaulted HR told me it was all in my head when I’d report things like “Joe and Brian are telling people they fucked me in the stock room.” Sometimes I’ll vent on social media - both where I know people and where I’m anonymous - and get no response, except maybe “stop saying xyz about people, be grateful for what you have.” I had to delete Facebook because it added to my depression.
I can’t hold a job anymore. I’m terrified of people and being outside. I recently got a freelance gig doing transcription but the pay is very low and only per minute of audio, and I suffer from migraines which makes it difficult. I’ve posted on social media that I can also do editing and proofreading, with no takers. My health has always been very poor and my mental health is trash. No therapist near me takes Medicaid and I’m afraid to go out and talk to one anyway. I’ve been denied state assistance, though I was recently approved for food stamps. I can’t get cash assistance. I’m burning through all of my savings with student loans (which apparently can’t be put on hold because they’re all private) and the rent my dad demands.
On top of all this, my mother just told me she’s divorcing my dad, because he’s abusive and cheats constantly. She’s disabled and won’t be able to keep the house so she’s moving out. She’s the only reason I’ve been able to stay here. I’m pretty sure my father will kick me out, or tell me I can only stay if I become the maid and yard caretaker. He’s already trying to sell my car (which he had to put in his name because my ex destroyed my credit), which will leave me trapped in the house, and my mother has made it clear I can’t move in with her.
My cousins all have their lives figured out. They’re all married with kids, as I’m constantly being reminded of, with their own houses or apartments and good jobs. They’re not afraid of people, or struggling with money, or having a panic attack at 1am on a Wednesday because they don’t know how they’re going to get through the next week, let alone the next year. It feels like the cat is the only one on my side and the only one who actually wants anything to do with me. Ten years ago my father called me a failure as a daughter, an adult, and a human being, and it’s just… true.
It’s not okay to tell a child who is telling you about their abusive parent, or abusive relative or sibling, to tell them in return ‘oh they care about you deep inside, they just don’t show it’.
That is not what the kid needs to hear. That kid put faith in you that you’re going to be on their side, understand they’re hurt, they’re scared, they feel hated, they’re starting to doubt the goodness of the person who hurt them, they need a safe space to express their pain, a confidant to hear and understand their part of the story, and they need help in order to not become a victim of this person’s abuse again.
And instead, you tell them, ‘Disregard your feelings, and conclude that this person, who hurt you and turned against you and used their power to abuse you, trust that this person actually deeply loves you, and what this situation needs is you having more understanding and tolerance because this, is actually love’. Nobody needs to hear this. No body, ever, needs to hear this.
Because this will, in fact, move the kid to consider that maybe there’s still love in this relationship, and yes maybe their abuser isn’t so bad, and maybe they should give the abuser another chance, and see deeper into their actions to find love they so desperately need in order to feel safe and accepted. And inevitably, they’ll fall victims to the abuse, again, and again, and again.
What you taught them, is to accept abuse as love. You told them it’s acceptable for the people in their life, to abuse them as a ‘misunderstood’ expression of love. You told them to treat abuse as one would treat love. You discouraged them from getting away from the harm, you failed to protect them, you failed to even validate their situation and their feelings, you failed to recognize that this is unacceptable, that they don’t deserve to be harmed, that it is not okay for someone who is supposed to love them, to abuse them. You taught them to accept anyone who hurts them, as a person who secretly cares. You gave them a push to tolerate this in their future friendship, relationship, marriage. Because how wouldn’t they forgive and understand it from their friend or spouse, if they did with a family member?
You put a situation of abuse in the context where the abuser doesn’t have to stop, but the vulnerable victim needs to put their feelings of hurt away, and ‘understand better’ that this is a form of love. That means the victim is the one who needs to take responsibility for the abuse, bear it, forgive it, and assume this is okay. You didn’t even explain to this child that they don’t deserve to be harmed. That hurting them is unacceptable. You went on as if suffering harm is normal and expected for this child’s life. You told them to endure it and failed to put them out of the harm’s way.
This is what enabling looks like. This is what siding with the abuser looks like. This is grooming, neglect, emotional abandonment, investment in abuse to continue. Nobody needs to hear that. Nobody needs to be reassured that the abuse is okay because their abusers love them.
What we need to hear is that this is unacceptable. That it was wrong to do this to you. Someone checking if we’re hurt, if we’re alright. Someone telling us they’re going to make sure we never suffer this abuse again. Taking our words seriously and making sure we’re protected, and we no longer need to worry about it happening again. We need a moment of grief for what we went thru, and to be asked for forgiveness because we weren’t protected, we were left to the mercy of a person who went on to hurt us. We need to know that people will be on our side, and find abuse as horrible and harmful as we do. We should hear that the person who loves us wouldn’t do this. That even the person who hates us doesn’t have the right to do it. Our feelings should matter. Our pain should be addressed.
That’s how you’d raise a person who understands their experiences matter and their feelings and safety have value in the society. To do it any differently is neglect and invitation of more abuse into a child’s life, as if that life is the least important one and reserved for taking damage. We do not exist to be sacrificed for families to stay together. The moment we’re put into harm’s way for the family’s sake, it’s no longer our family.
hey guys, i made a twitter thread with exact time stamps of triggering scenes to skip. the last two episodes (yes both are out) contain conversion therapy discussions and depictions, death, murder, homophobia, suicide discussions and depictions, and abuse depictions and discussions. viewer discretion is HIGHLY advised, even if you are not typically triggered by the aforementioned content. please please please be safe, i love you all. if you need anybody to talk to after the episode, my PMs are always open.
