They won’t say it out loud but in a dysfunctional family, the one who chooses to heal becomes the threat.
Not because you’re wrong but because your truth makes them uncomfortable.
The moment you stop shrinking to keep the peace, set boundaries, or say “This isn’t okay with me anymore,” you’ll be called dramatic. Selfish. Too sensitive.
But listen: You’re not the problem for wanting peace.
You’re not too much for choosing healing over silence. You’re not breaking the family-you’re breaking the cycle.
They’ll shame you because your growth reveals their wounds. Keep going.
Your voice might rattle the room, but it’s also the reason future generations will finally breathe easier.
You are the cycle breaker. And that is something to be proud of.
Not because you’re wrong
but because your truth makes them
uncomfortable.
Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.
’Then I must leave my own people, man of Gondor?’ she said. ‘And would you have your proud folk say of you: “There goes a lord who tamed a wild shieldmaiden of the North! Was there no woman of the race of Numenor to choose?” 'I would,’ said Faramir.And he took her in his arms and kissed her under the sunlit sky, and he cared not that they stood high upon the walls in the sight of many.
’Then I must leave my own people, man of Gondor?’ she said. ‘And would you have your proud folk say of you: “There goes a lord who tamed a wild shieldmaiden of the North! Was there no woman of the race of Numenor to choose?” 'I would,’ said Faramir.And he took her in his arms and kissed her under the sunlit sky, and he cared not that they stood high upon the walls in the sight of many.
i’m more sympathetic than most to the gay women who are like “i can’t get into f/f romance because it feels too personal” because for awhile that was me. and this was mostly because yknow i was a teenager still developing my own feelings on being gay. but also it’s not like pathologically avoiding something because its proximity to your own sexuality is alienating and uncomfortable will make you More comfortable with your own feelings on romance and sex. the truth is that i think women kind of Are conditioned to/expected to relate to fictional narratives with a level of personal projection and emotional intimacy that men aren’t expected to need.
i don’t remember who said this so i’m having a hard time finding the source and am about to butcher this anecdote but it’s like. some musician woman talking about how all of her songs are assumed to be autobiographical and intimately personally revealing, and her thought on that is something along the lines of “why can’t anyone ever say I’m a good storyteller.” To me that’s part of the same line of misogyny that makes people relate to f/f works this way.
In general there’s a pretense that women’s fiction skews towards the autobiographical in a way men’s doesn’t. like phoebe waller bridge accidentally making shit really hard for her family after releasing fleabag because of how large a portion of the audience thought it was an attempt to depict her own family’s real life dynamics [x]. Like it couldn’t have been Fiction, it had to be a Fictionalization in these peoples’ eyes.
Basically like either as creators or as the audience women aren’t afforded the capacity to engage with fiction as intellectually interested third parties. you have to be either reproducing your own immediate emotional landscape, or you have to be projecting that immediate emotional landscape onto one of the characters.
and like i dunno man i think once i accepted “i don’t need to emotionally connect to every or even any depictions of lesbian romance i see in fiction” it became much easier to get into f/f. like ohhh none of this has to be about me even a little bittttttttt… i’m literally not involved here at all. abandon the pursuit of “representation” as an endgoal of fictional experiences.
“Suppress ongoing protests” MASSACRE!! TO MURDER PROTESTERS BY THE TENS OF THOUSANDS!!
12,000 people were killed in TWO DAYS. That was last Thursday and Friday! It’s been a full week since then and no one can verify anything further because the internet and phone lines are completely shut down in Iran while the regime brings in FOREIGN MILITIAS to massacre protesters because they can’t get enough of their own people to mass murder their brothers and sisters! This is fucking insanity. Where is the world? Where is the support that was promised? Where is the UN? This is a crime against humanity. Tens of thousands are dead.
