Note To Self - Blog Posts

Credit: @unlimitedknowledge on IG

A note to world;

I just want a chance to fail,

because I know I won't!

-Elton M.

Your mixed feelings about your parents are valid.

Shout out to people like me who have parents who are loving but are black holes of emotional labor… It took me a long time to realize that it’s okay to have mixed feelings about your parents, about your relationship with them.

Sometimes parents can love you but be somewhat toxic to you and your growth, and that’s a very hard realization to come to if you, like me, grew up extremely close to them.

Sometimes parents can love you genuinely but lack emotional maturity, forcing you to perform disproportionate amounts of emotional labor. Some parents manifest symptoms of their mental illness in ways that are toxic to your mental illness.

Some parents, like mine, try so hard to be good parents but fall back on habits of emotional manipulation because they haven’t processed their own traumas and are modeling behavior they grew up with. That doesn’t make their behavior acceptable, and it’s okay to feel exhausted and hurt when they betray you. You don’t have to forgive every mistake.

I want you to know that it’s okay to protect yourself, to need some space apart from them. The love you have for your parents is still valid, and you are making the right decision.

Placing a safe emotional distance between myself and my parents has been one of the most difficult, heartbreaking processes I’ve ever gone through… it hurts to try to curb the strength of your own natural empathy around people you love. It feels disingenuous to your heart’s natural state.

But I promise you, you are not hard-hearted or ungrateful, and you are not abandoning them. You are making a decision about your own emotional, mental, and spiritual health.

I know what it’s like in that confusing grey area of love mixed with guilt and anxiety, of exhaustion and quasi-manipulation and unreciprocated emotional labor, and I promise you, you are not alone.

Your mixed feelings about your parents are valid.

I’ll try and respond to this later, I do have Some Things! (but not enough time or spoons to spare, just now)

hey… do any of my fellow avpd-ers have advice on making yourself Do Things that you Really Need To Fucking Do (ie adult things like emails/phone calls) and, on that note, how to explain your avoidant tendencies to people esp authority figures so that you don’t sound like a lazy asshole

This is worth doing, no matter what outwardly-visible, culturally-acknowledged things I do or don’t achieve.

This is worth doing just for me.

sorry if this isn't too thought out or anything but else mülleryn is one of my fav pentiment characters so I wanted to talk about her a little (spoilers ahead)

I think what I appreciate a lot about her characterisation is that her victimhood isn't her whole personality. I feel like some writers tend to (consciously or not) play into the 'perfect victim' trope, especially with women, and make abused characters completely unflawed. they're often depicted as loving, kind, caring, and weak, but I don't think else falls into that stereotype. this isn't to say else isn't loving or kind or caring, she definitely is. she isn't weak though - meek and shy, sure, especially in the first two acts when her abuser is alive and actively casting his shadow over her. but it takes a strong woman to survive in her position and raise a son who, against all odds, ends up becoming the stark opposite of their abuser.

at the same time, what I like about how else is written is that she is not perfect. there are a few moments, in fact, where she's very mean. like when magdalene brings up her scepticism about else's ancestors - I don't have the conversation to hand, but I do remember else can be very rude to magdalene, shutting her down when she brings up valid doubts. of course that doesn't make else evil or anything, she's defensive over her family history which is perfectly natural when it's something she clung to in secret for so long in the abusive environment of her marriage, where lenhardt tried to deny her her personhood. I think that reaction makes else feel very human; it makes sense she's quick to anger about something so close to her heart. I just like that she's written like this, rather than what we might expect based on other fictional characterisations of abused women. she doesn't let others trample over her just because she was a victim once. she defends her beliefs, however irrational they may be, just as someone like ill peter might. rudely and bluntly.

but this isn't just the case in act III, surprisingly. one of the first things else can say when andreas meets her in act I is actually much more mean-spirited. she asks andreas what it's like boarding with the gertners, and when he says they seem to enjoy having someone new staying with them, else responds with something along the lines of "perhaps eva more than clara, hm?" and then she backtracks, knowing that was perhaps a little too rude. it's somewhat vague what she means by that jab, especially at this point in the game, but I took it as slutshaming towards eva. we can later piece together that lenhardt and christine had an affair (although personally, this reads more as rape via coercion to me, given how lenhardt talks about his 'affairs' during the hunting scene), and that eva is lenhardt's illegitimate daughter. knowing how her husband treats women, knowing that his affair was likely not consensual, knowing that eva is just a byproduct of his violence and misogyny, else still makes that remark about her. it's less about eva herself, I think. it's the suppressed frustration and hatred she holds towards lenhardt and how he treats her and others, displaced onto a woman who exists only because of that behaviour.

else is a victim, of course, but she also perpetuates the misogynistic values that her husband upholds. 'eva is a whore because her mother was too' - that's what else seems to be thinking, because she can't think 'lenhardt is a disloyal rapist' if she wants to maintain her role as mother and wife. she can't be a 'good wife' if she hates her husband, so she projects that hatred elsewhere and adopts lenhardt's misogynistic, unempathetic thought processes. it's a very interesting and refreshing characterisation, I think. because it means that else isn't a perfect person just because she's a victim: on the contrary, it's her victimhood that makes her say and think things like this.

I especially believe that's the case because of how isolated she's been from the community since marrying lenhardt. correct me if I'm wrong but I seem to remember someone (maybe agnes?) mentioning that else is mostly avoided by the other women in town because of how her husband acts. she's the miller's wife. the miller who selfishly raises his tolls without showing remorse for the families who might starve because of it, the miller who coerces peasant women into sleeping with him. because of the sexist views of the time, a lot of the blame would have fallen onto else's shoulders. she's the miller's wife who can't keep her husband in line, the miller's wife who sits up on the hill outside her expensive townhouse looking down on all the poorer people she hates to mingle with. in reality, it's lenhardt who keeps her home (e.g. during st. john's eve) and prevents her forming meaningful relationships with the townswomen who might otherwise have offered her support. but the townsfolk don't know that, and some definitely believe she shares her husband's views.

I realise that's a lot of speculation, and that there are people who sympathise with else, but in the first two acts at least she is definitely not made to feel like a part of the community, and it isn't just physical means that keep her alone. domestic abuse completely isolates the victim from others psychologically as well. lenhardt's prejudices against the townsfolk are one aspect of it, as he constantly reiterates that he and his family are above them and shouldn't mix with 'their kind', which else has to obey in fear of him. but after years of hearing this, it'd be impossible for those prejudices not to leach into else's own worldviews. and knowing how some of the townsfolk view her unfavourably, it makes sense that she'd eventually give in to how lenhardt has been conditioning her to think, by speaking unfavourably about the townsfolk (like eva) in turn. it's a vicious cycle, one that only makes else more and more isolated. which, of course, is what lenhardt wants.

this is why it's so significant that how else ends up in act III hinges on whether andreas affirms her personhood or not. she has to learn to see herself as more than just 'the miller's wife' in order to end up forming meaningful connections with the townsfolk. if she doesn't, she ends up withdrawn and bitter towards everyone else. lenhardt doesn't need to be alive for him to still have influence over her mind. else has to actively work on bettering her psychology after his death to become an involved member of the community, rather than just staying as isolated as she was when lenhardt was still around.

so yeah, idk. to me, that's a very realistic and human way to characterise a victim who has escaped the abusive situation, and I appreciate that the writing doesn't shy away from the uglier parts of what abuse looks like.

for anyone who just remembered something really embarrassing from long ago, remember this,

your going to die one day and you and everyone in this world will forget about it, so don’t worry!

I'll keep my garden clean

And decide who is welcome

Watch out for my flowers

And take care of the beds

It's ok to say no.

It's ok to let it go.

It's ok to doubt it

And ok to don't know.

It's ok to feel low.

It's ok if I don't.

It's ok to trust

And ok if I don't

It's ok that I show.

It's ok when I grow.

It's ok to feel hope

And ok if I don't.

Trying

I'm trying my best

To keep on going

Stay true and remember

To learn and adapt

To Be honest and open

Towards you and myself

And when I'm exhausted

I'm trying to rest

Just go step by step

Take all the time you need now

Don't rush through it all

My shrine to Memento Mori by rococobean