I Had A Wonderful Opportunity To Make Some Pixel Art For This Welcome Home Update!! Huge Thanks To Clown

Awwww

What abusers believe.

If you’ve ever had to deal with an abusive person in your life - like an abusive parent or partner - you’ve probably wondered what made them treat you that way. If you understand why abuse is happening, the thinking goes, you might be able to figure out how to make it stop. 

So why do abusers do what they do? Do they have anger issues? Drinking problems? Past trauma? Personality disorders? Do they just need to get in touch with their feelings and learn how to communicate better?

Nope. 

Abusive behaviours come from abusive beliefs. Abusers - whether consciously or unconsciously - hold specific beliefs about relationships that drive their behaviour and allow them to justify the horrible things they do. Even if your abuser has never put their beliefs into words, you’ll probably recognize a lot of these abusive beliefs:

You are responsible for my emotions. It is never my responsibility to reflect on my emotional reactions or learn better coping skills - it’s your responsibility to stop doing things that make me angry or upset.

I must act on my emotions. If I am angry, I am going to lash out. You have no right to criticize me for that, and it’s not my responsibility to learn to manage my  emotions - you have to stop making me lash out at you. Asking me not to act on my emotions is controlling and wrong.

You will always be responsible for my emotions. Even if the relationship ends, you will continue to be responsible for my emotions, and I will expect you to continue to prioritize my feelings.

If I have feelings about something, it’s my business. If something you do or think causes an emotional reaction in me, then I have a right to get involved or tell you what to do. My feelings must be the priority. You don’t have the right to tell me that it’s none of my business. 

You must judge me on my intentions, not my actions. If I didn’t mean to hurt you or scare you, then you don’t have the right to be hurt or scared. No one has the right to try to hold me accountable unless I meant to hurt someone.

I get to decide what your intentions were. If you hurt me, you meant to hurt me. If you make me jealous, you meant to make me jealous. Nothing you do is ever accidental or unintended - everything you do is intentional and malicious, even if it was a response to something I did.

My feelings are genuine; your feelings are manipulation. If I’m upset, my feelings are real and important. If you are upset, you have an ulterior motive - you’re just trying to be manipulative and get attention or sympathy for yourself.

You have freedoms because I allow you to. Every freedom you have in your life - like wearing what you want - it’s because I generously allow it. I expect you to be grateful to me for that. I have the right to take those freedoms away whenever I want, and I expect you to obey.

If you set boundaries with me, you are mistreating me. If you really loved me, you wouldn’t set boundaries with me. You are doing this to intentionally hurt me, which means I don’t have to respect those boundaries.

You holding me accountable for hurting you is worse than me hurting you. My pain at being called out is worse than your pain at being mistreated. If I feel bad about something I did, I have already been punished enough. You trying to discuss the issue or hold me accountable is just your way of abusing me.

If I apologized for something, you have to forgive me. If the relationship has ended, you have to reconcile with me. You don’t get to ask for more time apart or more discussion of the issue - once I’ve apologized, the matter is closed for good.

The relationship is not over until I say it is over. So long as I want a relationship with you, you must have a relationship with me. Your feelings are irrelevant. Even if we have broken up, you must remain available to me so we can get back together in the future. Not wanting a relationship with me means you are mistreating me or being immature. 

I am the authority in this relationship. I am smarter and more perceptive than you. I know what is best for both of us. My version of events is always the correct one. I have superior judgement, taste and opinions. If you question me or disagree with me after I’ve given you the correct answer, you are disrespecting and mistreating me, or you are simply immature and incapable of knowing what’s good for you.

I have the right to control you. It is my absolute right to decide what you do and who you associate with. You have no right to disobey me. I am owed obedience and control; if you don’t give me those things, you are wronging me and cheating me out of the relationship I deserve. 

If you resist my control, I am allowed to do whatever I think is necessary to get it back. Once you’ve resisted me, I am justified in whatever I do to regain control of you. I am not responsible for my actions when you resist my control; you forced me to do it, and it’s your own fault. 

I should be your main focus. Everything else in your life comes secondary to me. When you make decisions, my feelings should be your first consideration. You are expected to make sacrifices for me and put me at the center of your life; I am not obligated to do the same for you. 

If I spend money on you or do something for you, you are in debt to me. You spending money on me or doing things for me does not erase your debt to me, and I am never in debt to you. You are indebted to me for as long as I decide. I may decide that your belongings and earnings also belong to me, since I allow you to have them. I may also decide at any time that you owe me for gifts I gave you, even if they were meant to be gifts.

I am not abusive, and you are not allowed to tell me otherwise. I know what abuse is, and real abusers are significantly worse than me. If our relationship has ever had any good times or positive moments, it can’t possibly be abusive. If you accuse me of being abusive, you are the one abusing me, or you have been led astray by bad influences. 

Relationships should be effortless (for me). I am owed a relationship that is peaceful and requires no real effort from me. It is your job to make sure we have that kind of relationship. If there is any tension or conflict in the relationship, it is your fault, and you are depriving me of the relationship I deserve to have. 

Abusers and victims alike often buy into the narrative that abuse is rooted in anger issues - after all, abusers are frequently angry, and anger is an issue that can be treated. But this narrative just isn’t true. Abusers aren’t abusive because they are angry. Abusers are angry because they are abusive. 

A non-abusive partner is not someone who has learned how to control their rage whenever you spend time with your friends or get home 15 minutes late from work. A non-abusive partner just doesn’t feel any rage in those situations. An abuser’s rage is firmly rooted in their beliefs about relationships - they feel entitled to a relationship that meets their impossible expectations, and when they inevitably don’t get it, they bubble over with fury. Whether they know it or not, they have firmly entrenched beliefs about how relationships should be, and those beliefs are at the heart of their abuse. 

Can abusers stop believing these things? Maybe. If they can acknowledge that they have these beliefs, accept that these beliefs are dangerous and unreasonable and let go of these beliefs, maybe it’s possible for them to no longer be abusive in the future. Maybe. But it’s not your job to hang around and find out. If you’re in an abusive relationship of any kind, you deserve better. There are many people in this world who don’t hold abusive views of relationships, and you deserve to find happiness with them. 

Growing.

Thewizardliz sayings to remember and repeat

It's about you; you are the main character of your life.

Sometimes you need to get uncomfortable to get comfortable.

People who get angry at you for putting yourself first are the same people who benefit from you putting yourself last

You are allowed to say, "Nah, that's not good enough."

Stop wasting energy that you can use to become your best version.

Becoming selfish is the best thing I ever did.

I can make myself fulfilled, and whatever he gives me is just an extra.

Start now with what you have.

Enough crying, enough being sad, enough saying "tomorrow".

Sometimes you lose people that are not meant to be with the highest version of yourself, and you have to let those people go.

You vs. you, honey.

Some people just don't deserve you. Not mentally, physically or spiritually.

I don't argue with people because most of them are stupid.

People don't really care what happened to you or what you went through. They really care about what you can do for them.

Only here to impress myself.

When a Queen does not like her situation, she plans her exit.

Manifesting is a lifestyle.

The best revenge is creating a better life for yourself.

I started prioritising my own needs and wants; whatever I want goes first. That's it; I do not care anymore.

I could honestly go on forever since Liz has so many great things to say, so let me know in the comments if I should make a part 2! <3

✩‧₊*:・love ya ･:*₊‧✩

resolve preview; more info beneath the cut

resolve is a project i have been working on since 2019, when I was 29. I called it a “zine” to start but turned out more like an art book; it has over 120 ilustrated pages, interspersed with narrative text-only pages that tell a brief story of my experiences (largely internal) with CPTSD, complex dissociative disorder, and recovery.

When finished, I plan to have resolve available in full online for no cost. I looked for people’s stories to connect with when I was trying to manage symptoms I couldn’t understand, and I wanted to provide my own in spirit of that.

The entirety of resolve is written and thumbnailed. No other previews of the text will be posted anywhere until resolve is complete, but I reguarly post WIPs to this blog under the resolve tag because I enjoy sharing my art with others. However, finishing the rest is going to take a long, long time.

I am currently quite disabled due to chronic illnesses, particuarly since the beginning of 2023, and I am unable to work. I scrape together the few hours of ability to work in a week I am able to work on resolve because, to put it rather plainly, my health concerns had me fearing that I could drop dead someday before resolve is finished and I decided picking through it however slowly was better than sitting with that fear constantly. I will continue focusing on it as long as I am waiting for my health to stabilize enough to start freelancing/otherwise working again.

If you are interested in supporting resolve, the best place for that at the moment is my Patreon.

Alternatively, in the short term, please consider looking at my partner's top surgery GFM; their surgery is scheduled for April 2024 and they work fulltime to provide for me, and the GFM has slowed down of late.

None of resolve would exist without them, I hardly doubt I would, and they have done nothing but support me, emotionally and materially.

Thank you for reading.

:)

The stigma of self-inserts is so harmful to the creative process. Relax. Admit it. Everything you make is derivative of yourself, always, no exceptions. You can turn the mirror into tinier and tinier shards or you can make it as big as you want to reflect as much as you want. At the end of the day it's always going to show you inside of it. Pretending otherwise is stupid.

dungeon meshi is so fucking awesome because you can tell that ryoko kui is having immense fun with her OCs. i saw a post a while back that was like "it's easy to forget that all of these manga characters are essentially the mangaka's OCs but for dungeon meshi you can really tell" and it's so true bc you REALLY really can....ryoko kui pours so much of her fondness for her characters into her work and puts them into little situations and dresses them up and delves into her universe in a way that feels very familiar to anyone who's ever been really invested into their OCs i think :) the urge to play with your OCs like dolls...to flesh out their world in mundane details that absolutely nobody but you would think of at first......thank you ryoko kui for your service

POV: He caught you simping