I finally bought some bras and underwear online. I’m glad I did it, but I can’t help but feel ashamed at the same time. I’ve internalized a lot of ideas about how it’s inherently predatory and gross for me to buy women’s clothing for myself. Ugh. I feel like such a joke.
pallygirl
10 years ago
Thanks contrapangloss, hopefully I’ll have a good sleep tonight. I haven’t napped or slept today, and I’m tired to the bone. The problem with that, as you’ll all have experienced, is that over-tiredness causes insomnia too. /sighs
pallygirl
10 years ago
@Ally – I consider that underwear is underwear and people should just wear what the hell they want. I don’t consider there is anything remotely skeevy about a trans female ordering and wearing female clothing, regardless of point of transition, just like I don’t think there is anything skeevy about a transvestite doing the same. The closest I came to wearing male underpants is French knickers, but the seams were incredibly uncomfortable, so I won’t be doing that again. Seriously, why do French knicker manufacturers think I want a seam that digs into parts that are uncomfortable to be dug into with overlocked seams?
Wear what you like to wear: this could be what makes you comfortable, it could be what makes you feel prettiest, or most colour coordinated, or suits your body shape best. 🙂
There’s nothing predatory or gross about buying women’s underwear. You’re a woman after all. Even if you weren’t, your underwear, your business!
Women’s underwear is a lot cuter and a lot more fun than men’s underwear so I hope you can let yourself enjoy it.
kittehserf MOD
10 years ago
pallygirl, I feel the same way about seams where they shouldn’t be! I looked at some exercise shorts/bike shorts in Target the other day, the sort that you don’t wear anything under – they had four-way seams right where they shouldn’t have. Who designs these things???
pallygirl
10 years ago
MRAs perfecting their sex robot genital design. It is known.
kittehserf MOD
10 years ago
XD
pallygirl
10 years ago
Oh, and I am now hallucinating the curtains moving out of the corner of my eye. It looks like there is a cat behind them. There isn’t, and there is no draft either. I have boring visual hallucinations. 🙁
One of the career firefighters will be on a two week trip, and I’m house-sitting. This means I’ll finally have a dog to come home to! Met her already: she’s as deaf as a rock, loves walks, loves treats, but also loves naps and isn’t really in-your-face every second of the day.
She’s also got a ruff perfectly textured for hugs and pets.
Then, the job that will actually pay me will start on Friday! So, I’ll actually have an income! I’ll have to cut down on ride-alongs with the career station to accommodate the job, but INCOME!!! I’ll be able to buy groceries without wincing at my diminishing savings!
Life’s good right now.
I’ have a paycheck, and a wonderful, sweet, fuzzy-one to feed, walk, pet, and love-up.
So, earlier this month, I had a pretty horrific repressed memory come up regarding the death of our original girl. I think I mentioned that here.
This led to me putting a lot of things together and writing a series of posts on what I call the horror circus: the incredible clusterfuck of child abuse, PTSD, and rape in our family that started with our mother’s molestation and ended with them being unable to cope with our existence and us leaving.
This was all pretty tough stuff, but also empowering for me to write. I specifically gave no identifying information about our parents, no names, no descriptions… hell, the name we go by now is completely unrelated to theirs, so it’s not like anyone could track them down through our information. I specifically wrote them for other people to learn from.
And it turns out our father is still following our online activity, two years after we cut ties with them, over one year since I said ANYTHING to them. (And that was basically to tell them about the horror circus.) He sends us a very displeased email about us “saying negative things” about them.
I’m furious. First, because LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE. Second because I write THREE POSTS about all the rape happening to us, and his reaction is to clutch his pearls because I SAID MEAN THINGS ABOUT HIM. (When let’s face it, there is NO nice way to say, “Yeah, you knew what was happening but ignored it and told me not to talk about it.”) Third because he knows I’m not going to respond; he’s just trying to get me to shut up. It’s not enough that I’m GONE, they still are trying to control my behavior.
Father, NOBODY IS GOING TO COME FOR YOU. You got away with it! Nobody’s going to do anything to you! LEAVE ME ALONE. FUCK.
Yeah. And what makes me angrier, he’s acting like WE’RE the ones refusing to talk about it, when I damn well told him what happened in our last email. The ball was in HIS court, and he chose to respond with one line: “May God be with you.”
Like there’s any God in this.
Not only that, but this is NOT the first time he’s taken our trauma and made it all about HIM, how it makes HIM feel, how it hurts THEM. When I finally got the guts to admit that I hadn’t felt loved by him or our mother in a year, his response was, “That’s terrible. We’ve been wasting a lot of energy for nothing then.”
This is why I left. I left because I felt like some shitheap, trying to guilt trip and manipulate their behavior, and that it was better I just left. But no, even TALKING about them is apparently enough and GOD I AM SO ANGRY RIGHT NOW
serrana
10 years ago
Wait, wait, he’s acting like you’re refusing to talk about it, but he’s angry because you talked about it? He needs to just fuck right off then.
Specifically, he’s claiming we’re refusing to talk about it WITH HIM. Which, admittedly, we cut them off before I’d figured everything out, but told him as much as I knew in one last email a year ago.
So he’s angry that I’m talking about it publicly, but not talking to him directly. Because yes. That is what happens when you cut someone off. You stop talking to them.
Robert
10 years ago
On the relative good news front, our older son has left the house four of the last five days. His struggle with depression and anxiety is still ongoing, but between medication, therapy and his own hard work, he’s doing better every week.
LBT, your family stories are horrifying. That you’re still alive and doing as well as you are is truly inspiring.
cassandrakitty
10 years ago
Kind of random but for anyone else who’s in a currently hot place who likes iced tea I just found a new favorite.
Robert, I’m so glad that your son is doing better.
This morning I went to a reception in memory of my good friend who died of breast cancer about a year ago, when she was only 37. There were a bunch of people there. Her mother came too, and I got a chance to talk to her for a while. It was very emotional and also very touching.
I tried to do a long takedown but just didn’t have it in me. So I just made this instead.
I realize this is highly specific, but I turn once more to the great knowledge of the Mammoth gestalt! Can anyone recommend light fluffy romances where somebody gets out of a crappy family situation through loving someone else? Queer romances would be totally awesome, but I can live without.
cassandrakitty
10 years ago
Just saw the thing about your dad, LBT. It’s amazing how many men default to that kind of “yes, but what about the ways in which this bad thing that happened to you are hurting me?”, isn’t it? It’s almost like many cultures train them to react that way.
(Pro-tip – this is because we do in fact train men to react that way.)
pallygirl
10 years ago
@LBT I don’t read romances, but a biography of Queen Elizabeth I made me feel awesome.
@cloudiah 🙁
@Robert yay 🙂
And I managed about 6.5 hours sleep last night with no sleeping pills. 🙂
*sigh* It’s not the first time this has happened. Like I said, it is why I left. Just… it hurts less knowing they can’t behave in a loving manner towards me, but knowing they probably see me as some kind of Andy Blake, making up horrific stories of abuse just to manipulate them, that sucks.
Families. How do they work? Thank god I met husband; I really don’t know how I would have learned what love was actually like without his example.
BUT FUCK THEM. Today, the homeless coalition took me on to become a speaker to educate folks about homelessness, and they will even pay me money. And I sold a comic and mailed out another order someone ordered a couple days ago. And last night, I had a wonderful time with my husband. I AM NOT GOING TO LET THEM RUIN MY FUCKING DAY.
cassandrakitty
10 years ago
They’ve long since proved that they don’t deserve anything from you, LBT, not even to be in your thoughts. I know that it’s hard to banish them, but remember that if they were worthy of being loved by you they would already have proven it by not assuming that you were making stuff up to manipulate them (and, indeed, by reacting with appropriate parental concern during the period where you were being manipulated into sex by an older man).
Unimaginative
10 years ago
@LBT, Amy Lane writes m/m romances, often featuring some really painful pasts. Her light & fluffy ones usually involve knitting.
Rhys Ford has a few series. It seems like one half of her romantic pairs always comes from a really solid family, and the other comes from a shit-show. I think she over-romanticizes large Irish families, but it’s still a fun ride.
I also really like Sarah Black, Z.A. Maxfield, K.A. Mitchell, Heidi Cullinan, and Mary Calmes. All of them write m/m romances.
RE: Unimaginative Ah, it’s okay, I have now stocked up on gay robots. This is all I require. Lots and lots of gay robots. *hugs comic book* Oh, printed paper, once again I return to your wood pulp embrace…
RE: cassandrakitty
Yeah. It takes some impressive entitlement to read something about your daughter getting raped to death and complain about YOUR hurt feelings.
We Hunted The Mammoth
I finally bought some bras and underwear online. I’m glad I did it, but I can’t help but feel ashamed at the same time. I’ve internalized a lot of ideas about how it’s inherently predatory and gross for me to buy women’s clothing for myself. Ugh. I feel like such a joke.
Thanks contrapangloss, hopefully I’ll have a good sleep tonight. I haven’t napped or slept today, and I’m tired to the bone. The problem with that, as you’ll all have experienced, is that over-tiredness causes insomnia too. /sighs
@Ally – I consider that underwear is underwear and people should just wear what the hell they want. I don’t consider there is anything remotely skeevy about a trans female ordering and wearing female clothing, regardless of point of transition, just like I don’t think there is anything skeevy about a transvestite doing the same. The closest I came to wearing male underpants is French knickers, but the seams were incredibly uncomfortable, so I won’t be doing that again. Seriously, why do French knicker manufacturers think I want a seam that digs into parts that are uncomfortable to be dug into with overlocked seams?
Wear what you like to wear: this could be what makes you comfortable, it could be what makes you feel prettiest, or most colour coordinated, or suits your body shape best. 🙂
There’s nothing predatory or gross about buying women’s underwear. You’re a woman after all. Even if you weren’t, your underwear, your business!
Women’s underwear is a lot cuter and a lot more fun than men’s underwear so I hope you can let yourself enjoy it.
pallygirl, I feel the same way about seams where they shouldn’t be! I looked at some exercise shorts/bike shorts in Target the other day, the sort that you don’t wear anything under – they had four-way seams right where they shouldn’t have. Who designs these things???
MRAs perfecting their sex robot genital design. It is known.
XD
Oh, and I am now hallucinating the curtains moving out of the corner of my eye. It looks like there is a cat behind them. There isn’t, and there is no draft either. I have boring visual hallucinations. 🙁
So excited for next week!
One of the career firefighters will be on a two week trip, and I’m house-sitting. This means I’ll finally have a dog to come home to! Met her already: she’s as deaf as a rock, loves walks, loves treats, but also loves naps and isn’t really in-your-face every second of the day.
She’s also got a ruff perfectly textured for hugs and pets.
Then, the job that will actually pay me will start on Friday! So, I’ll actually have an income! I’ll have to cut down on ride-alongs with the career station to accommodate the job, but INCOME!!! I’ll be able to buy groceries without wincing at my diminishing savings!
Life’s good right now.
I’ have a paycheck, and a wonderful, sweet, fuzzy-one to feed, walk, pet, and love-up.
🙂
Gratz contrapangloss. 🙂
Okay, I am PISSED.
So, earlier this month, I had a pretty horrific repressed memory come up regarding the death of our original girl. I think I mentioned that here.
This led to me putting a lot of things together and writing a series of posts on what I call the horror circus: the incredible clusterfuck of child abuse, PTSD, and rape in our family that started with our mother’s molestation and ended with them being unable to cope with our existence and us leaving.
This was all pretty tough stuff, but also empowering for me to write. I specifically gave no identifying information about our parents, no names, no descriptions… hell, the name we go by now is completely unrelated to theirs, so it’s not like anyone could track them down through our information. I specifically wrote them for other people to learn from.
And it turns out our father is still following our online activity, two years after we cut ties with them, over one year since I said ANYTHING to them. (And that was basically to tell them about the horror circus.) He sends us a very displeased email about us “saying negative things” about them.
I’m furious. First, because LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE. Second because I write THREE POSTS about all the rape happening to us, and his reaction is to clutch his pearls because I SAID MEAN THINGS ABOUT HIM. (When let’s face it, there is NO nice way to say, “Yeah, you knew what was happening but ignored it and told me not to talk about it.”) Third because he knows I’m not going to respond; he’s just trying to get me to shut up. It’s not enough that I’m GONE, they still are trying to control my behavior.
Father, NOBODY IS GOING TO COME FOR YOU. You got away with it! Nobody’s going to do anything to you! LEAVE ME ALONE. FUCK.
Fuck anyone who gets angry at you for making them look bad when all you did was say what they did. That’s you making yourself look bad, dude.
Yeah. And what makes me angrier, he’s acting like WE’RE the ones refusing to talk about it, when I damn well told him what happened in our last email. The ball was in HIS court, and he chose to respond with one line: “May God be with you.”
Like there’s any God in this.
Not only that, but this is NOT the first time he’s taken our trauma and made it all about HIM, how it makes HIM feel, how it hurts THEM. When I finally got the guts to admit that I hadn’t felt loved by him or our mother in a year, his response was, “That’s terrible. We’ve been wasting a lot of energy for nothing then.”
This is why I left. I left because I felt like some shitheap, trying to guilt trip and manipulate their behavior, and that it was better I just left. But no, even TALKING about them is apparently enough and GOD I AM SO ANGRY RIGHT NOW
Wait, wait, he’s acting like you’re refusing to talk about it, but he’s angry because you talked about it? He needs to just fuck right off then.
Specifically, he’s claiming we’re refusing to talk about it WITH HIM. Which, admittedly, we cut them off before I’d figured everything out, but told him as much as I knew in one last email a year ago.
So he’s angry that I’m talking about it publicly, but not talking to him directly. Because yes. That is what happens when you cut someone off. You stop talking to them.
On the relative good news front, our older son has left the house four of the last five days. His struggle with depression and anxiety is still ongoing, but between medication, therapy and his own hard work, he’s doing better every week.
LBT, your family stories are horrifying. That you’re still alive and doing as well as you are is truly inspiring.
Kind of random but for anyone else who’s in a currently hot place who likes iced tea I just found a new favorite.
http://www.mightyleaf.com/loose-tea_flavored-black-tea/celebration-black-tea/
It’s good hot too, but better iced. I had been using the one below when I wanted iced black tea, but the one above is an interesting alternative.
http://www.mightyleaf.com/loose-tea_flavored-black-tea/brazilian-fruit/
LBT, shit I’m sorry. And what katz said.
Robert, I’m so glad that your son is doing better.
This morning I went to a reception in memory of my good friend who died of breast cancer about a year ago, when she was only 37. There were a bunch of people there. Her mother came too, and I got a chance to talk to her for a while. It was very emotional and also very touching.
I tried to do a long takedown but just didn’t have it in me. So I just made this instead.
I realize this is highly specific, but I turn once more to the great knowledge of the Mammoth gestalt! Can anyone recommend light fluffy romances where somebody gets out of a crappy family situation through loving someone else? Queer romances would be totally awesome, but I can live without.
Just saw the thing about your dad, LBT. It’s amazing how many men default to that kind of “yes, but what about the ways in which this bad thing that happened to you are hurting me?”, isn’t it? It’s almost like many cultures train them to react that way.
(Pro-tip – this is because we do in fact train men to react that way.)
@LBT I don’t read romances, but a biography of Queen Elizabeth I made me feel awesome.
@cloudiah 🙁
@Robert yay 🙂
And I managed about 6.5 hours sleep last night with no sleeping pills. 🙂
*sigh* It’s not the first time this has happened. Like I said, it is why I left. Just… it hurts less knowing they can’t behave in a loving manner towards me, but knowing they probably see me as some kind of Andy Blake, making up horrific stories of abuse just to manipulate them, that sucks.
Families. How do they work? Thank god I met husband; I really don’t know how I would have learned what love was actually like without his example.
BUT FUCK THEM. Today, the homeless coalition took me on to become a speaker to educate folks about homelessness, and they will even pay me money. And I sold a comic and mailed out another order someone ordered a couple days ago. And last night, I had a wonderful time with my husband. I AM NOT GOING TO LET THEM RUIN MY FUCKING DAY.
They’ve long since proved that they don’t deserve anything from you, LBT, not even to be in your thoughts. I know that it’s hard to banish them, but remember that if they were worthy of being loved by you they would already have proven it by not assuming that you were making stuff up to manipulate them (and, indeed, by reacting with appropriate parental concern during the period where you were being manipulated into sex by an older man).
@LBT, Amy Lane writes m/m romances, often featuring some really painful pasts. Her light & fluffy ones usually involve knitting.
Rhys Ford has a few series. It seems like one half of her romantic pairs always comes from a really solid family, and the other comes from a shit-show. I think she over-romanticizes large Irish families, but it’s still a fun ride.
I also really like Sarah Black, Z.A. Maxfield, K.A. Mitchell, Heidi Cullinan, and Mary Calmes. All of them write m/m romances.
RE: Unimaginative Ah, it’s okay, I have now stocked up on gay robots. This is all I require. Lots and lots of gay robots. *hugs comic book* Oh, printed paper, once again I return to your wood pulp embrace…
RE: cassandrakitty
Yeah. It takes some impressive entitlement to read something about your daughter getting raped to death and complain about YOUR hurt feelings.