grief, i’ve learned, is really just love. it’s all the love you want to give but cannot. all that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and the hollow part of your chest. grief is just love with no place to go.
The whole “scientists use big words on purpose to be exclusive” is such a bunch of anti-intellectual bullshit. Specific and concise language exists for a reason; you need the right words to convey the right meaning, and explaining stuff right is a hugely important part of science. Cultures that live around loads of snow have loads of words to describe different types of snow; cultures that live in deserts have loads of words to describe different types of sand. Complex language is needed for complex meaning.
When abuse, whether real or fictional, is talked about in media, one of two things usually happens. The abuser is either completely dehumanised and painted as an evil caricature, or given a tragic backstory that makes the victim feel so sorry for their abuser they end up forgiving them.
And I think this is part of why it can be so hard to believe we ourselves are going through abuse. Because when it’s you going through it, you see the human side of your abuser too. You see them cry, and laugh, and overcome adversity, and be vulnerable, and feel scared and small. You see them struggle and you see them genuinely try to spend quality time with you, and you see them show the ways they love you. Sometimes, you can even see that they mean it when they say they love you.
And because we’ve been taught that “actual” abusers are all bad, heartless, merciless, and lacking in humanity, and everyone else is just a suffering person who hurt others because they were hurting inside, we think what we’re going through can’t possibly be abuse. We think we’re exaggerating, or being weak, or selfish. We punish ourselves for not being more understanding of what they’re going through. We convince ourselves we’re making it all up and we’re the monsters in our own story.
But we’re not. We’re just not used to acknowledging that abusers are human, and that their humanity does not negate their abuse.
If you’ve ever questioned your abuse because your abuser was struggling, or genuinely loved you, or was trying their best, or expressed conflicting emotions, or was abused themselves, this post is for you. I believe you. I believe what happened to you was abuse. Their circumstances did not justify their actions.
I believe you, and you are not alone.
The thing is, abusers ARE human, they have hopes and dreams, they could be good people and learn to be better
But their victims have NO obligation to care about any of that. They can if they want to - I know many people who reconnect with past abusive parents who have learned and grown.
But that is the victim/survivor’s choice to make, and nobody else’s.
Their only responsibility is to themselves and their loved ones. Their own safety. Many other people may try to insert themselves into the dynamic and feel one way or another about it, but the one who survived that abuse is the one who has the final say about their own lives.
And if you’ve experienced abuse, you do NOT need to feel guilty about complex feelings about an abuser, or even simple feelings - whether it be forgiveness or anger.
Your choice to forgive, or to never forgive, or to wish you could but feel like you need to hold out - they are all valid and they all matter because they’re YOUR choices and that’s the most important thing.
You are your own person who can make your own choices. Nobody should take that away from you.
All I can say is that I hope you stay safe and be well.
This is a map of Asia. North Americans, you may notice this map is not solely comprised of Japan, Korea, China and Thailand. People in the UK, you may notice India is not a continent. That is, if those of you who generalize entire continents can even pinpoint India on a map. Indians are Asian, gasp! And not all brown skinned people are Indian, also, gasp! There are an alarming amount of people, of all ages, from all backgrounds, who seem to be unable to process this.
I’m ethnically Asian. Since Asia is an extremely large continent, I could be from any number of countries. I am neither from India, China, Korea, Japan or Pakistan, yet not so surprisingly, I am still Asian.
Yes, there are commonalities across regions, through the conflation of cultures, colonialism, globalization, transnationalism and movement of diasporas. Sometimes these are all the same thing. Rickshaws, rice and curry can be found across the continent. But let’s not overgeneralize. You can also find Buddhists, Catholics, Muslims and Hindus across Asia. Cantonese Speaking Chinese Muslims! English Speaking Indian Jews!
No, we are not all the same. Orientalism? (Please look up Edward Said for basic concepts) No thank you.
Geography, people. It’s important.
This pops up on my dash every so often. I reblog it again, not just because I wrote it, but because nothing has changed since I first posted this.
What’s cool about Iran is that it falls in 3 different regions of Asia so depending on what part of Iran you’re in, you can kind of get culture shocked a bit. The central and western part of the country is West Asia, the north east is Central Asia, and the southeast is in South Asia.
To the folks wondering about Russia being included, I want to mention that the cultural debates and angst about that has been going on for CENTURIES. While France has been pretty fetishized all the way back from Peter the Great, there is no question that we are not Europe, even with that influence showing really obviously in historical seats of power like St. Petersburg. Nonetheless, the whole country was under control of the Mongols (The Golden Horde) from roughly 1242 to 1480, and that left an enormous Mongolian and Tatar heritage that remains to this day. The ancient Scythians are huge in the cultural imagination as well. And besides… look at the Russians who are outside the standard “Kievan Rus” phenotype (which most folks assume is how all Russians look.)
Here are three of the 30 distinct ethnic groups in Siberia alone:
Buryat grandfather, photo by Alexander Newby
Evenk children, photo by Evgenia Arbugaeva
Young Yakut couple, photographer unknown
boom
AS SOMEONE WITH NORTHERN IRANIAN (AZERBAIJANI)/RUSSIAN/ HAZARA-PERSIAN/ UYGHUR-CHINESE ANCESTRY THIS IS SUCH A BEAUTIFUL POST
And that’s why sometimes you’ll see a person with curly black hair, pale skin, and hazel-green eyes (my grand-father’s sister) who turn out to be Chinese. Mad recessive genes game at play, I swear. Mongols, they really got around.
I was looking for this post months ago and it was in my endless likes all along.
Oh, and if any of y'all are wondering why you don’t associate Russians with that look at all - Russia is an empire, and the conquerors are Slavs, and they pretty much get *the* say in media, cultural export etc. You know how Ukraine is under attack right now? Yeah we’re only special in that we get to be on the border with Europe and thus actually visible to it in our existence :\ (and also Slavic)
![sugiichi:
“Erithacus akahige [コマドリ,Japanese robin] 婚約者と一緒に移動中、藪の隙間から顔を出してくれました😊
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