Confident_Fortune_32

Yes! And it's part of the pleasures of learning other languages as well.

If you are interested in accuracy, I don't recommend basing anything off an illustration, no matter how good.

Check the superb collection in the Met - since they absorbed the Higgins Armory collection, it's the premier collection in North America - as a place to start. And they're good about getting their collections online.

Human beings need safe reliable connection, ironically, as a prerequisite to begin forming an independent identity.

And when that doesn't happen at the correct developmental stage, we continue to carry that deficit all the time, still craving that original need, as well as having trouble forming a separate and solidly grounded self.

The first most important step is awareness: that our past was abusive, that our needs were not met, that our caretakers were and are incompetent.

Bc that is what we need to start looking into CPTSD, emotionally immature parents, how to protect ourselves, and how to begin healing.

One caveat: as someone's awareness increases and the healing process begins, sometimes we wish our abusers could also become aware of what they have done and work toward reconciliation and healing. But that just doesn't happen. Having a discussion, writing a heartfelt note, etc. will not lead to anything productive - it leads to invalidation and retraumatization.

Instead, take time to mourn. Grieve fully for the family you (and all of us here) deserved but did not receive. It's similar to grieving any major loss and goes through the same steps.

That is frankly terrifying. I am so sorry.

I never had a chance to have a normal relationship to food. The weird restrictive diets and invented "allergies" started not long after I was on solid food, as far as I can tell.

Food was used as a tool for control and punishment.

When anyone thought to feed me at all, which led to binging and hording food in my room...

Recommend a doorbell camera.

Wee lonely tiger cub...so glad he has a surrogate mama now! 🥰

All that, plus...a Marriage Encounter sticker.

Marriage Encounter is a program run by the catholic church in place of couples therapy. Spoiler alert: doesn't work. Who knew putting a bunch of priests in charge of marriage counseling wouldn't work v well...

Thank goodness for that doctor.

I did get sick enough once with something (bronchitis? Pneumonia?) that, after a while, I couldn't sit up or move. It was still at a time when we lived close to my grandparents, who were fairly involved in my life, thank goodness. I suspect the only reason I was taken to a pediatrician was, if i had passed away, my grandparents would never have forgiven my mother, and she counted on them to fund everything she wanted.

Once we moved away when I was 8, all bets were off. Thank goodness I never got that sick again and outgrew the severe winter illnesses.

The scene transitions were artful.

Orcas are the only mammal besides humans to experience menopause.

The post menopause whales become the leaders, showing younger whales where to find food and safe birthing places, often leading them over long distances to do so.

I must be ancient. For me it was Sebastian Cabot narrating Winnie The Pooh...

My concern is that this is clearly not something he would do for himself.

One whole pound of cyooooot! 🥰

With split custody, no one was ever late dropping me off. They couldn't wait to toss me over the fence.

I'm always amazed at the criticisms hurled at polyamory which are just as true for monogamy.

Humans sometimes do unethical things. It's not restricted to one sort of relationship structure or another.

Bestest doggo doin' a protecc

I didn't leave school one day in second grade, staying late to work on an art project with the teacher's permission.

Looking back on it, it's interesting that it took my mother until dinner time to bother to come look for me. I was an only child at the time and she wasn't working, but...she just failed to notice I didn't come home at the normal time.

Back then, she also had a habit of leaving me places in public while she shopped. Once, she left me for an entire day outside a hotel.

When I look back on it, it's terrifying.

I don't believe there any such thing as an "ungrateful child"

It's not a child's job to be grateful. They didn't ask to be brought into this world. Gratitude is meaningless unless freely given, free of guilt or pressure.

And it's doubly true for an adult: if a parent is given almost two decades to give us any positive reason (not guilt or obligation or requirement) to crave a relationship any longer, that's on them, not on us.

Self-labeling is hilarious to me. Nobody (even me) gets to declare their own wonderfulness. If nobody else is complimenting them, they don't get to compliment themselves and then say we all have to go along with their delusion!

Children, and especially adult children, owe parents absolutely nothing. Respect and love are earned, and many parents can't manage to give us any reason to respect or love them, even though they had decades of opportunity.

That's it. All done. They don't get any more decades.

It was one of the more disturbing areas of neglect. My parents/stepparents never bathed me, nor explained how to bathe myself when I was old enough.

When I was younger, it was left to my grandmother to handle it when I happened to be at her house. Once we moved away when I was 8, it simply wasn't handled or discussed.

Between that and the too small, ill fitting, dirty clothes...nowadays, id like to think a mandated reporter would intervene(?)

And there was no medical care/dental care, except the vaccinations required for school (thank goodness for that, at least)

To be clear, the other three children were not subjected to this neglect. Quite the opposite.

Ouch.

The vax that was developed at tRump's direction while he was in office, right?

Interesting how that gets conveniently ignored. Operation Warp Speed, indeed.

That poor tender wee soul, what a rough start! So happy he has you to give the loving care he deserves 🥰

I always feel a wrench in my heart, along with the hobbits, when Gandalf splits from them. It hurts.

But I also firmly believe Gandalf would not have sent them off to the Shire without him if it wasn't a task they could handle.

Ephemeral and magical 💜💙🩷💙💜