guilty because i put up a boundary. guilty because i enforced it. i want to eat my own fist. hate the whole of it.
i tell my therapist that i don’t really feel like i needboundaries. i say i am comfortable with most things; i’ll figure it out as i go along. she says: that’s a fawn response. i laugh about it, because it’s either laugh about it or do something about it.
the thing is that once i like someone, i’ll forgive them for anything. they don’t even have to apologize for it. they could step over each of my desires and take all my teeth. it might take me a little while, but i’d get over it. i’d say: oh, she was having a hard day, and didn’t realize i was serious about my safety. i’d say: he’s always had anger issues, i feel bad that he hasn’t been responding well to therapy. i’d say: you know, it kind of isn’t fair of me to expect them to know i don’t want to get hurt, i should have been more clear and repeated what i wanted.
i tell other people i’m easy-going. sometimes i get called good naturedorhappy-go-lucky. i am not able to list traits that i like about myself without mentioning how i help other people. i let people desiccate me and then i say - well, as long as they’re happy.
i have been a bad person, is the thing. when i was really sick. and honestly sometimes even when i was doing better. i’ve hurt other people, and i don’t want other people to hurt the way i did. i only have friends because others have forgiven me for the wrong i have done. i only have gotten this far because someone else gave me patience, and kindness, and help.
so it’s not fair of me to set a boundary, ever. plus, if i set one and it is broken - that just hurts. and when someone crosses that line i drew, i have to take an action in response. i have to kick someone out of my life (as if i have so many other options) or i have to confront them about it (as if that doesn’t make me cry) or. if i take the easy route: i have to simply accept that it happened and internalize it and move on; let it go without a fight.
i can’t control, after all, how other people react to my boundaries. they probably are unfair boundaries anyway. it’s easier if i just control how i react to the pain - if i just ignore it, and hope it goes away. no need to blow this out of proportion. no need to make a fuss. this way all the hurt stays inside of me, and doesn’t slip out and get into anyone. this way is better, right.
CW: pet whump, BBU, lady whump, stabbing aftermath, PTSD flashback, self-hatred, dehumanization, memory gaps, complex feelings around trauma and bonded whumpees, idk how to tag this
***
Star had to stitch up her own wound. Unravel the bottom of a towel, thread a needle she’s used one too many times, and weave it around the wound to stop the bleeding before she passed out. She’s done this before, she knows she has. The scar on the other side of her torso that she doesn’t remember getting tells her a story of its own.
She’s done this before.
Push the needle in and out of skin, try to ignore how her nerves feel like they’re on fire, try to ignore the images flashing in her head nonstop. Sunny, coming at her with a knife.
She loves him. She still does.
She loves him even though she can’t stop seeing the way his face looked the moment before he plunged the knife in. Determined, almost. Like he wanted to do it.
But that…it’s pulling up things she’s not supposed to know, false memories that are just a natural part of training. They’re just false memories.
That dark hallway, the glint of a knife as someone approaches her…it’s just false memories. A communal bathroom, blood on her hands and the smell of death in the air…it’s just false memories, false memories, it’s all false memories.
She doesn’t realize she’s hyperventilating until she feels like she’s running out of oxygen, finds herself on her hands and knees, sweaty forehead pressed to the wooden floor, teeth gritting together.
501, you’re fucked in the head, you know that?
How did she get back to the pet room from the bathroom, she doesn’t remember putting a white bandage over the stitches. She’s losing time, losing time, losing time, she’s remembering things that shouldn’t be there.
501, you’re fucked in the head, you know that?
Loud music, drums and guitar and someone singing but the drums stop and she’s on her knees and she can’t breathe, she’s not supposed to remember any of this. False memories, false memories for her stupid bad mutt brain.
How can Sunny love her when she’s fucked in the head, you know that?
Does he even love her?
She would have stabbed herself if he had asked. She once was a Guard Dog, she could have done it right, made sure nothing bad happened to her organs, made sure the wound was just enough to stop her stupid mutt paws from hurting Mr. Bianchi but not so bad that Star swears she heard the knife scrape bone.
She’s supposed to think about her bonded to calm herself down. Supposed to focus on her beautiful Sunshine’s face, but now that face is connected to the gleam of a knife and the gleam of a knife is connected to a dark hallway and the rotting stench of infection and blood and sweat and something darker, low throbbing energy that makes her want to stand up and scream. It’s a pulse of violence, the desire to crack her hands against a brick wall, adrenaline coursing through her along with a twisting sense of dread.
She can feel phantom hands pulling her along, phantom hands kicking and clawing and punching at her and the distant, false memory of her own hands pushing back, of her own lips pulling up into a satisfied snarl and she’s lying on her back now, gasping for breath and whining softly.
Phantom pain on her body…not her body, Mr. Bianchi’s body, Sunny’s body, just a vessel for her stupid mutt brain.
What are you what are you what ARE you, girl
I’m your worst goddamn nightmare
“I’m a mutt,” she whispers into the nothingness.
“I, I’m b-back.”
Star props herself up on her elbows and looks at him but his face makes her think of the knife and the knife makes her think of her false memories and this is a bad night, bad pain night with her head splitting itself open.
She turns away and doesn’t say a word because the face that brought her so much light and joy is just sending her down dark hallways and false memories and things that just show how she’s a stupid bad mutt.
501, you’re fucked in the head, you know that?
He’s crouching down next to her and whispering something and Star is everywhere and nowhere all at once, the pet room and Hunter’s bedroom and the Facility and dark hallways that are just her false memories.
She whimpers, she’s not angry anymore, she’s in too much pain and too tired.
She does so much to protect him. She tries her hardest and she takes all the punishments she can because she understands how her owner operates beyond just wanting to please him. She knows he’ll hit them anyways but if she can divert his attention and take all the pain no matter what it is, maybe Sunny won’t become a stupid ugly mutt like her.
She has to talk to him, though, she’s bound by chemical need and what WRU made her into. “You hurt me,” she says, her voice hoarse from holding back her screams when she sewed herself up.
“I, I know.”
She keeps her eyes closed, can’t look at his face, can’t look at his face and she can’t explain why the idea of that fills her with fear. Her skin is cold and clammy and it’s like she’s holding onto a ledge that’s crumbling underneath her fingertips.
She’s not allowed to let go.
Falling means death, fists pounding into her face that won’t stop or Handlers with drugs and batons or Hunter with his whip or Sunny with his knife. Falling means failure and failure means death.
“You hurt me,” she repeats.
“Y-you were, were going to h-hurt Sir.”
It’s supposed to be so plain and simple but it’s not, it’s not and the ledge crumbles a little more.
501, you’re fucked in the head, you know that?
“Okay,” she whispers. “I fixed my own wound, in case you were wondering. You didn’t ask but I’ll tell you anyways. I sewed my own wound shut.” She tries to hang onto her own words, tries to pull herself off the ledge but her muscles are so weak.
“I h-had to do that,” he whispers.
She doesn’t look at him but she can still feel him tense, she feels his heartbeat and his anxiety like it’s her own.
“Why?”
It’s one word.
One word that seems to such all the life out of the air.
So she repeats it.
“Why?”
One word and it’s a death sentence, one word and Star feels like her ribs are going to cave in.
She’s searching for something that doesn’t exist and they both know it. Looking for a light in a darkness that isn’t there.
“I h-had to.”
“That’s not an answer.” She’ll always be the bad pet, the pet full of hatred and anger, the discount mutt. She knows that won’t change. But he could talk to her. Please. She can’t take all the pain on her own, she needs to be helped up from the ledge even though she’s a stupid mutt who doesn’t deserve it.
“Can, can we just g-go to bed? Sir h-h-hit me.”
Compartmentalize. Push it all down and learn how to deal with it. She doesn’t have another choice. She has to pull herself up the ledge again even though she doesn’t even understand where she is. Her and the world and a foggy pane of glass but leaving her eyes closed feels like safety. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs to him.
“It, it’s okay.” She feels him snuggle up to her and she winces from his bony elbow pressing into her wound.
“You stabbed me,” she reminds him, her heart racing in her chest. Hands on her is bad, she has to fight and win but she can’t. It’s her bonded, she can’t hurt him. “How?”
“Because you, you threatened S-Sir.”
“But I’ve tried to hurt you before and it didn’t work.” Eyes still closed and she’s slipping under again. “Even when Sir told me to, it didn’t work.”
“C-can we go to bed?” Sunny asks, his voice a little more insistent.
“I don’t think the knife hit anything major,” Star responds. “If you were wondering.” It’s almost like he’s forgotten but Star is still dangling from the ledge.
“Oh-okay.”
It’s with her eyes still closed that Star crawls over to the sheets, her wound burning, and falls over, panting.
Sunny’s right there, curling up next to her.
Another brief moment of silence before he speaks again. “I d-did it because you were thinking bad, bad thoughts and I needed to f-fix you before you, before you did something stupid.”
“Right. Because I’m just a stupid mutt.”
Sunny nods and a tiny part of Star shatters.
“N-night, S-Star,” Sunny whispers, holding her to him.
It hurts, but she doesn’t say no. He corrected her behavior once, she doesn’t want him to do it again. Pets can’t say no.
PTSD signs and other symptoms of poor mental health, wrapped in a single package i.e. this heavily damaged lad in Labyrinth Runners.
Avoiding and denying.
Hypervigilance and flashbacks.
Sweating.
And eventually shaking after trying to hold it off.
Panic attacks.
Flinching.
Intellectualising when Gus promises not to mess with him.
Freezing up.
You know what else? He’s taking longer than we’d like to really open up because he has no accurate reference from his childhood of a secure, loving bond in any relationship.
I saw this several times but after today i kinda just wanted to reblog it as a reminder to myself of just how many of these things i’ve been doing lately, and how many i did just TODAY. kinda reminds me why I latch onto characters like this. I’d trick myself into thinking it’s just something wrong with ME if I didn’t have these characters to be compassionate towards.
As a sexual assault and DV survivor advocate for 4+ years, I was often asked how people could be more supportive of survivors in their day-to-day lives. In honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, I want to share some of my most successful advice:
A great way to be trauma-informed and supportive of survivors in your everyday life is to speak to and treat people as you would someone whom you know for a fact has been assaulted. At least 1 in 4 cis women and 1 in 10 cis men in this country have experienced sexual violence, and the numbers are higher for trans and gender-nonconforming folks.
You’re never going to hurt someone who hasn’t been sexually assaulted by treating them with the same kind of thoughtfulness that you would a person of whose trauma you’re aware, but you could hurt someone by treating them specifically like they haven’t experienced sexual violence.
IMPORTANT!!! VvVvVvV
I’m not saying you should walk on eggshells around everyone! I’m saying you should put trigger warnings for content that references sexual violence, you should always check in with someone before you start a conversation regarding sexual violence, and when you’re talking to/in a big group of people, assume that someone in that group has had some kind of experience with sexual violence (the numbers tell you it’s probable). Don’t treat anyone like a victim, but be aware of the topic, and the odds of someone having experienced it, when it comes up.
