u/Nekofairy999

A couple of years ago I was finally seeing a therapist that I actually liked, after experiencing retraumatization and abandonment at the hands of other therapists. It was going pretty well but nonetheless I went into a bad mental state and impulsively tried to kill myself. I stayed in a horrible abusive psych ward for 8 days. Then when I got back, I was told I couldn’t see my therapist anymore. It wasn’t her decision; it was the director of the practice she works for. Because I attempted suicide, that makes me a liability. As in they’re worried about getting sued if I were to actually die.

I guess that makes sense from a cold, analytical, legal standpoint. But from a human empathy standpoint, isn’t that fucked up? After something like this happens, that should be the time you need therapy the most right? And an abandonment at that time is profoundly destabilizing.

Since when do therapists get sued for patients committing suicide anyways? Surely it can’t be that uncommon. It’s damn near impossible to hold them accountable for anything. I would’ve liked to sue another therapist of mine for giving me PTSD with her botched EMDR, but wasn’t able to (I’m not asking for legal advice, go away stupid box)

I haven’t seen another therapist since then. I only want to see her if I go to therapy, but I can’t. It’s almost funny, the times I’ve been to psych ward and hospital for self harm and suicide attempts since then they ask me “hAvE yOu tRiEd tHeRaPy?” No shit Sherlock, why didn’t I think of that? I was in therapy for 12 years, and my most recent therapist dropped me for the exact reason I’m in the hospital/psych ward.

Gosh, it’s almost like therapy is not meant for people actually dealing with severe mental illness.

I saw a post here recently that stated “Gen Z are the children of Gen X and Millennials.” This confirms something I have been thinking for some time. I have had some conversations with people here who push back on me calling myself a Zillennial, denying the existence of cusps. I was born in 1999, so obviously I’m Gen Z, right? But it’s more complicated than that.

For one thing, I’m right on the cusp. And I have a bit of an unusual situation. My parents were older when they had me, they are Baby Boomers born in 1956 and 1958. I have half-siblings who are much older than I, ranging from 1974 to 1989. So yes, my oldest siblings are technically old enough to be my parents. But they aren’t. It is a different way of being raised, and it was not always good. This isn’t the place for trauma dumping, so I’ll just say that there was no Gentle Parenting here. I remember in middle school, some other kids “helpfully” told me that having older parents is probably why I wasn’t socially savvy and was uninformed about things like sex. It’s weird, but I got the impression that the “cool kids” were mostly born to teenage or early 20s parents. Of course, being noticeably anachronous compared to my peers can also be chalked up to undiagnosed autism. I’m sure both of these factors played a role.

I have nieces and nephews ranging from 2007 to 2020, so they are Gen Z or Gen Alpha, or on the cusp of those two. My oldest niece was born in 2007 and is almost 19, so she is solidly Gen Z. I’m closer in age to her than my 1974 brother, her father, and we’re both Gen Z, right? The age gap is small enough for her to be my sister. Now that she’s an adult, we interact more like peers. But it’s clear that we’re not quite the same generation. People her age colloquially call my age group “unc”, and for me, that is quite literal. I’m her aunt. I watched her grow up, and we weren't raised together the way siblings are. I think it’s safe to say that she is Gen Z, and I am a Zillennial.

I’m not sure, but I imagine some people who were raised by their grandparents may feel similarly. My parents are old enough to be my grandparents after all. Of course, I never knew my actual grandparents. They were dead or mentally gone by the time of my birth. For a few reasons, but mainly because of a couple of generations of older parents, and/or health issues that caused them to not live to be super old. Honestly, it feels a bit unfair that I am the only one of the siblings/cousins who never got to know my grandparents, especially the beloved matriarch that my grandma on my mom’s side was and is still talked about to this day. I do share a spiritual connection with her, and my other ancestors. On my mom’s side, I love my family a lot, but at the family reunions there are very few people my age. My first cousins are in their 40s, and their kids are teenagers. I don’t fit in with either group generationally. I am no contact with the extended family on my dad’s side, but that is another matter entirely.

I got downvoted for commenting this take on another post a while ago, so I figured I may as well make my own post and see if it gets downvoted too. Trigger warning, I’m trauma dumping a bit. This is also US-centric.

Children straight up don’t have rights. The United States is only UN country that has not ratified the UN Convention on The Rights of the Child. Let that sink in. This is largely because of opposition from conservative groups regarding “parental rights” and the freedom to “discipline” their children as they see fit (aka hitting them.) I called the police on my dad several times, they didn’t do shit except imply that I deserved it. I had no rights at all.

This is the problem with some breeders. They view their children as their property. They don’t want a kid, they just want a small human that they have total authority over.

There was a CPS report filed by a camp counselor, we met with them and all they did was offer parenting classes, which he turned down and then he literally forgot that it ever happened. 11 years later he accused me of lying that CPS was ever called on him, I had to go down there myself and get the file on it for proof. I feel like they dropped the ball, CPS does fuck all to actually protect kids. My aunt claims she worked for them and that I was not abused. Then explain why I have diagnosed PTSD from it, bitch breeder. She wasn’t even there at all when I was growing up.

Think about it, children are the only group of people that are allowed to be hit. If someone hit a non-consenting adult upside the head, tackled them out of their chair and painfully spanked them really hard while they screamed for him to stop, that could be classified as assault and possibly even sexual assault. I know that’s very controversial and I wouldn’t usually go that far, but I do feel violated from it in the same way as other forms of SA I’ve experienced. So if it’s not okay to do that to an adult, why is it okay for a man to do it to a 12-year-old girl? Too many people think it is okay and just “discipline.” Yet I objectively have major trauma from these things. How does that work? Is there just something wrong with me? Or is there something wrong with the world?

People argue with me about it, but the science is clear regarding the negative effect of spanking on a child’s brain development. And that’s just spanking. It doesn’t even include other forms of violence I’ve experienced like slapping, shoving, physical restraint such as being held against the wall by my neck. I wrote a whole research paper about this, and I’d be happy to link some studies I cited if you are asking in good faith.

I don’t care if you’re childfree because you hate kids, you don’t get to just hit people who piss you off. If you disagree and think corporal punishment is okay, please don’t try to argue with me about it. I’m warning you now that it will trigger my PTSD and I will get really angry. Just don’t. Downvote and quietly scroll past this post if you must.

So this started a couple weeks ago when someone asked for a cruelty free alternative to Vaseline. I recommended Lanolips 101 balm and All Good Goop balm, because those are the products I use instead of Vaseline. I double checked that they are cruelty free. I’m well aware that they contain lanolin and beeswax, but I didn’t think anything of it because OP had not asked for vegan products.

Someone else said that no, these products contain beeswax/lanolin. When I told them that doesn’t make it not cruelty free, I got downvoted. I was so confused because they are Leaping Bunny certified and this is a cruelty free subreddit, not a vegan subreddit.

But then, I realized that it seems like a lot of people are getting cruelty free and vegan and mixed up. They are separate things. Cruelty free means no animal testing. Not all cruelty free products are vegan. Non vegan products can be Leaping Bunny certified. Vegan means no animal ingredients. Not all vegan products are cruelty free, which honestly surprised me because I wrongly assumed that something had to be cruelty free to be considered vegan. I understand many people here want products that are both, and I respect that but it’s not me. Personally I only care about it being cruelty free. There’s vegan beauty subreddits if that’s what you want.

I’m not here to argue, so I’m trying to stick to the simple facts to inform people. I’ve attempted to explain the many reasons I have for not being vegan. The biggest one is that I developed nutritional deficiencies just from being vegetarian. My dietian recommended not doing that because it is far more difficult to get proper nutrition, and I shouldn’t be making my life harder with the mental and physical conditions I’m already dealing with. But people here have claimed to know better than my doctor and dietitian, they’ve claimed that eating meat is worse than racism (wtf???) I have many thoughts but quite frankly I don’t feel I owe an explanation to people who don’t listen.

Here’s another important fact. One kind person here helpfully informed me that the community info for this subreddit clearly states this exactly:

“While vegans may be a large majority of who shops cruelty free, not everyone is vegan or vegetarian so absolutely no shaming or converting.”

The vast majority of people here are breaking this rule constantly. I came here solely for cruelty free product recommendations, and now that I have a good CF skincare and makeup routine locked down I don’t need this anymore. I can do my own research. I’ll be hanging around in the normal skincare and makeup subreddits, while quietly purchasing only cruelty free cosmetics and eating what I want as a personal decision I make for myself. I will also be muting notifications for this post and not even looking at the replies because again, I’m done arguing and I won’t change my mind. See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya.