miss bunni doll's blog
blog post #3: i took my new, lovely cat to the vet
tags: diary entry, cat, pet
I took my beloved cat, Milly to the vet. We recently adopted her around two weeks ago. She was an outside cat who everyone around in our neighborhood love and adore. She is very well-behaved, affectionate, sweet and gentle. She is very smart, too. She looks like a tabby American shorthair. She already has been taken to the vet twice by neighbors, they've tried looking to see if anyone owned her for a month but found nothing. She was essentially a stray but very loved and would be fed and given water by people from the office. We had fed her before, too. But many times we wouldn't see her. She was so skinny 3: One time when we fed her, her face looked so tired. Right after eating the tuna we gave her, her belly expanded and her face looked more full of life, her eyes awaken and less tired. I was so worried about the storms when she was still outside. We were told sometimes she would be brought into the office but the office closes at 5. I doubt they'd keep her in there all night. Poor kit. We had been wanting to cat-nap her for a while before we knew she wasn't owned, we didn't want to take someone's cat; she had a collar. We gladly found out they were searching for a home for her. She was also already chipped. She was almost put down because there was no space for her at the shelter she ended up at, thankfully they found the chip and took her back to our neighborhood. I'm so happy we saved her! She is the lovliest cat. Even the people who work on our homes knew her and missed her after we took her in. We were checked up on. Milly is very spoiled by us. We have gotten her so many cat beds and toys already. She is a healthier weight already too.
At the vet she received a booster shot, we were given topical medication for fleas, even though they couldn't find any fleas, she has been a little itchy, so we are glad to treat her anyway just in case. We have to go turn in a fecal sample tomorrow so they can test if she has parasites.
She was so anxious in the car in her carrier bag. She is usually quiet and mellow, but she was crying so much on our way to the vet, and also when we were driving home. She calmed down the closer we got to our house. It really felt like she was scared we were going to abandon her or take her to some shelter like she'd never see us again ;_; Of course not!! How could we! She is such a sweet cat, I feel so lucky we were the ones who ended up with her. No one else was able to take her in even though they adored her. I can't believe she hadn't been snatched, but I am also so relieved and happy she ended up with us, we love her so much and I believe it was truly meant to be. Once she arrived back home she calmed down. We gave her wet food so she can forgive us for accidentally spooking her. She was purring so loud and laid down comfortably on our floor. She seems very happy with us. She looks very young as well. They checked her teeth and said she can be between 1-2 years old. We think she is barely 1, she is so small and looks so young. Poor kitty, was outside fending for herself! She had hidey places during the storms we were told. Now she is warm, well-fed, safe and comfy in our cozy little home. I have been wanting a cat again for a while as it's been years since I've had one and I loveee them. She is the best cat I've ever known, so well-behaved. She would expose her belly for pets from everyone and roll around when she was outside. Cats are usually more stand offish, wary and distant, but she is the biggest sweetheart, while also having killer outside cat instincts when it comes to playing her toys. She is hilarious, sometimes her mouth becomes open, or she sticks out her little tongue, or moves her head left to right sometimes in a funny situation, she is so expressive. She also seems like she understands us like when we tell her not to scratch the couch. She loves hanging around near us. She licks us a lot and starts purring when we carry her. I love you so much silly, pretty kitty Milly!!!
written 10/22/2024
blog post #2: things i'd like to do before october ends!
tags: fun, fall, halloween, activities, cozy, relaxing, enjoyable, nice, exciting
Here is a list I created ♡
update 10/21/2024: i added "make boo baskets" & halloween date night to my printed list! i thought it would be fun to make a boo basket for someone/receive one & go out on a halloween date in costume :)
written 10/18/2024
blog post #1: searching for & recovering the self that i lost
tags: mental health, family trauma, abuse, recovery, healing, self identity, authenticity
Ahh okay, my first blog post, woohoo!! I really wanted to start a blog so that I can have a place to practice writing as it's always been a goal of mine to write and publish a book! I also wanna use this blog to help express myself, ideas, share things relating to my interests. I hope you enjoy reading!
So, the title... yes, I am currently searching and exploring for the parts of myself that I've lost throughout my life so that I can recover it and heal from doing so. Why? Well, I went through something called FSA (family scapegoating abuse). I just finished a good book about it which really helped me gain so much more clarity of the reality of what I experienced in my immediate famiy. It's called:
- Rejected, Shamed and Blamed: Help and Hope for Adults in the Family Scapegoat Role by Rebecca C. Mandeville
The way that I found this book was by researching about something I had realized after some journalling prompts recommended by my therapist. I was in the middle of writing a list of people I want to forgive and going into detail of why I was upset with them and why I'd like to forgive them. I poured my feelings out from my heart and mind onto paper, which stared back at me and helped me recognize a pattern since my childhood; how often it would happen where my mother and 3 siblings would all go against me at once, drive me crazy, insult me, yell, blame, shame, harass, until I finally reacted, tried to defend myself (but it would never work; there were more of them and I'm the youngest) or snapped, and then they'd use my reaction against me to justify their negative labels onto me even more and justify their abuse then continue it or worsen my consequences. Like, "see, you ARE so bad! This is why we're doing this!". I was writing about how much I hated it when this would happen which was all the time for years. Wow, I'm just realizing it really was a cycle. Attack, trigger to breaking point, use as further justification for abuse, repeat. God, I hated it so much.
I had forgotten this pattern that they've done to me most of my life and that prevented me from noticing they were continuing it in my adulthood, since I had some time periods away from them. Recognizing the pattern helped me understand more on why they were still treating me this way. I fear it has been engrained into them when it comes to me. This form of pushing someone to their limits then using it against them is called reactive abuse, which I just learned of. I didn't know there was a term for what I had always gone through. And it is something so common for the family scapegoat. They may even record you at your worst moments to use it against you. This is dangerous and so toxic and harmful for the victim, as this can even result in you losing your job or license, getting arrested. I've seen it happen! My mother has done this to my father as well. He got arrested for acting out in front of the cops my mother called on him after he was upset because my mother filed a restraining order to kick my father out of his own house, and because of the arrest he lost the ability to work for the government. My mother and brother have recorded me, too after she and him had pushed me to my breaking point. My mother has showed the video to someone I knew to make me look bad or show me at my worst moment which she pushed me to (what she was doing that pushed me to my breaking point was really bad but it's a long story I don't wanna get into right now) and talked a lot of bad about me, maybe even to more people who knows. But I don't care, because I'm fully aware she is very toxic and operates through false narratives.
Completing reading this book has helped me realize so much more about things I knew I had felt, except I'm not just wandering curiously in the dark anymore, I have the most clarity now. What happens often in Family Scapegoating Abuse is, out of survival, you subconsciously start to reject the parts of you that they would shame and attack through toxic shame that they projected onto you, for me, since developmental years. Normal shame is when we feel bad for something wrong we did. Toxic shame is when we feel shame for nothing wrong that we did. Through their insults, blaming, targetting, harassment, negative false beliefs projected onto you and abuse, out of survival you might have shut those authentic, healthy, positive parts of you so that you may be more invisible or less susceptible to their abuse. It happens so subconsciously and I know this because I didn't realize that's what happened and what I was still doing until I read the book but it is always what I had felt. Like I had to mold myself to be smaller to make THEM comfortable.
Therefore, a big part of healing and recovering from the scapegoat role you were forced into, the author says, is to search for, find, heal and recover the parts of us that we lost; identify it and identify with it, with a firm standing of, Hey, this is who I truly am; it doesn't matter what negative things they say or "believe" of me.
- I
- I
The author states if you still have them in your life, they may try to push back if you change, abuse you, want to change you back or call you names, might even call you narcissistic just for simply finally starting to care for yourself and stop neglecting yourself for them; they want you to change back into what they're used to. They most likely will struggle to accept your changed self because it makes them uncomfortable for you not to act the role they always reinforced. It can be really hard to actually recover this way, we may be retraumatized, triggered, and therefore, our recovery hindered further. So she recommends to cut them off. Cut off and separate from anyone who is still abusing you. I agree. Cutting off my mother and 3 siblings who play along to the dysfunction of my mother's false narratives and toxicity was the best thing I ever did. & I would do it again!
So, yeah. Now, I'd like to search and find the parts of myself that I lost. My oldest sister was extremely abusive and a huge part of putting me down constantly. My brother and my other sister would also put me down at times but much less than the oldest. She was insane. The earliest I remember being abused by my siblings was 3. By kindergarten I realized my oldest sister was the worst. It only stopped when she moved away. I was 15. She's 9 years older than me. So at 23-24 she was still insanely abusive. One time I briefly lived with her again for a very short time at 18. She tried not to be like before, as she had a kid and her partner there, but one time she did snap at me for no reason, and another time made me feel bad about myself while we were all out to eat for her son's birthday. I went to cry in the bathroom. Thank God she left soon after. I felt I couldn't be myself around her at all, which the book explained very well. They are threatened by you for whatever reasons. I think she was just so insecure to the point she felt that threatened by her little sister that her narcissism made it so she had to tear me down any chance she can. As a kid until my teenage years she always tried to catch me doing something wrong, scream at me, shame me over nothing, get me in trouble, turn my parents against me. For my graduation in middle school she convinced my mom I didn't deserve a graduation or a graduation dress cause I was "so bad", even though I was never a bad kid, I was only reacting to my family's abuse. That experience hurt me a lot but I'm blessed with many beautiful dresses now. :) As a kid I was quiet, well-behaved at school, never got into fights, and my grades were the best out of all of my siblings. My brother and oldest sister were awful with grades, always in fights or trouble, she was sneaking out, my oldest sister was smoking weed since a young age and going places she shouldn't.. and super bad behaved. I have many more personal stories involving her but that's just a general gist.. My mom would never hold her accountable for the abuse she did to me since I was a kid and I always wondered why. Well, because it benefited her too. I was always blamed and attacked when I would try to stand up to the very wrong things my mom would do. If anything she enabled or may have created this whole environment where my siblings only feel validated as her children if they do what benefits her, which also they believed benefits them. Who knows what they faced before I was born. Maybe they were desperate to not be the role they forced onto me.
Parts of myself that I repressed to make my sister feel more comfortable, was the confident, positive, happy little girl who loved music, wtiting & reading, creating, learning, growing, art, makeup, video games, fashion. Who wasn't afraid to be herself. Who loved herself. Who felt worthy enough of the best.
Parts of myself that I repressed to make my mother more comfortable was putting my needs first instead of everyone else's. To take care of myself. To do it first before tending to others. To pamper myself first instead of neglecting myself and putting others #1. Because she had engrained it subconsciously that I wasn't important, my needs are not valued, I didn't matter as much as her. That my every needs should go ignored.
Parts of myself that I repressed to make my brother more comfortable was the confident self, was the part of me who could feel pretty without getting attacked or criticized for it, criticized for what I wore, how others reacted to it, getting angry at me when older guys were creepy even though what I was wearing was appropiate and I was 12. Criticized me and yelled at me for a song I was playing that was inappropiate but very popular at the time. I mean yeah it was inappropiate so okay parent me I GUESS even though you're not my parent, but why yell? I didn't mean any bad by it, I was listening to it with a gay friend. For being criticized and analyzed for any little thing I did, the part of me who was free, who knew she was smart and not dumb like he said to me as a small kid when I was just exhibiting psychological abuse symptoms. For being shamed, blamed and attacked and told how evil I was any time I spoke out or retalliated against my mom's abuse. I guess he couldn't really repress me on that front since I still spoke out against them every time. But I repressed any sense of self confidence or personal styling to make him and my oldest sister not abuse me. The self who wasn't afraid to express herself authentically. The self who didn't care if others judged me.
So basically: I need to work on regaining my full self expression again, recover from the guilt I felt for being myself or showcasing anything positive about myself, recover from feeling toxic guilt when I receive any kind of positive attention, recover from the weird feeling I get when people notice me too much or when I sometimes feel uncomfortable for wearing something I like, regain my authentic self confidence and expression, my interests, not be afraid to show my true self anymore. The positive traits I hide. The part of me who liked to socialize instead of trying to be as invisible and tiny as possible for everyone else's comfort. The self who wouldn't put up with any bad and never reject what I feel or value and believe in, let my values get stepped on for others. I need to relearn to feel comfortable and good to be in my best, truest self expression. I am using this site as an exercise for this by expressing myself through my coding, CSS, writing and webpages!
written 10/14/2024