Thread by @fuckspec

So.. this is a thread I’ve been dreading posting about. But, a thread that I feel I need to share regardless.

RTs welcome, please don’t reply with “let me tell you how to do this better” bullshit ‘cause I’m fine, really, I just need to get this out.

CW: talking about my incest trauma, PTSD, family deaths, past suicidal tendencies, and mentions of gorey nightmares.

This thread gets p detailed compared to others I’ve seen. Probably a bad idea to post this, but I’ve gotten p familiar w the block button and nothing to lose.

When I was 12, a month from 13, my father died of a heart attack.

Great way to start a thread.

I loved my father. He was probably the only man in my life who ever treated me with respect. When I lost him, I lost that incredible role model, and an outlet to talk about boys.

I didn’t trust my mom with boys. She was vocal about her distaste for the general male population (but loved my dad) so I grew up thinking she just didn’t know what she was talking about (ah, the internalized misogyny settles in regardless a good parental upbringing, eh?)

In my puberty-addled state, I ended up seeking out male partners anywhere I could, likely to fill the void my wonderful father left, only to come out realizing I had hurt myself in the process. I had hindered my ability to do what was right for myself.

I entered an abusive relationship that lasted over 4 years with a boy my age and I had no one to talk to about it (except for a male teacher who did a great job staying professional, knowing I had just lost my dad. I still think about him.)

We had no sex ed, no information as to what we were getting into/how it would affect us, etc etc I’ve talked about this countless times.

Long story short, the PTSD surrounding my father’s death was real, strong, and was EXTREMELY affective in repressing.. Everything.

2 days after my father’s death was the first day of school.

I went.

And when they asked “what did you do over the summer?”

My well-known class-clown ass laughed, and said “my dad just died, so that’s super fun I guess.”

I literally. Would not. Let myself cry.

I told myself every day after his death that I cried enough. That this pain wasn’t real, that my dad loved me and wouldn’t want me to feel this way, and that my tears were a sign that I was weak.

That I didn’t even deserve to feel sad to begin with.

I was twelve years old.

After my abusive relationship ended, I still didn’t let myself cry. I didn’t let myself cry when my abuser told me “you have to let me see other girls, I’m going to marry you one day anyway. Don’t be selfish. Also, don’t cheat on me because that’s also selfish.”

I didn’t let myself cry when my abuser said “i come from a family with strong sperm, and attractive people. If we have a daughter, and she’s attractive, you would be selfish not to let me sleep with her.”

I didn’t even let myself cry when he forced himself on me, when he started showing up to my house, when he showed up to my workplace years later with a pregnant woman who all I could think was, “is she dealing with the same boy I was with? Or did he grow up?”

I didn’t let myself cry when I realized I couldn’t get an answer to that because of how fucking scared I was of him, of how I didn’t know if he’d changed or not and that if he didn’t, I couldn’t risk being pulled back in like he did so many times.

I wanted so badly to be proven right, to make sure that all those times I denied myself the opportunity to FEEL for MYSELF were worth it.

I cried for HIM, countless times. I cried because I wanted him to get better. But not because I wanted me to know I had feelings too.

I didn’t LET myself have feelings for myself. Any time I started thinking I deserved to cry for myself was the moment I’d start thinking about my dad.

About how I didn’t cry for him.

So what made me think I deserved to cry for myself? What gave me the right?

I’ve been suffering, guys. Like.. big fucking time. I had no idea how strong a hold PTSD could have on a person. PTSD is suffocating, but it’s also numbing too. You don’t even realize it’s happening until someone brings up a Tony Hawk game and you end up having a breakdown.

When I was about 7, my brother and I got caught playing ‘house’ a little too intimately. We didn’t know it was wrong, we had no idea that the things we were doing weren’t for people who were related let alone children.

And we were caught by our teenage aunts no less.

I don’t blame them for how they reacted. It IS bad and wrong, and needed to be put to a stop. But they shamed us. For hours upon hours, forced us to sit on the couch while they laughed and berated us for being ‘stupid enough to kiss each other’.

We didn’t know any better, and neither did our aunts. But our aunts really solidified a sense of self loathing I carried for me for 10 whole years.

I became suicidal at age 11. I didn’t tell anyone but I wanted, more than anything, to die. I hated myself more than anyone else.

So when my dad died, I felt I didnt deserve to let out my pain. I felt like I deserved to carry it with me, everywhere I went, for as long as I possibly could because if I didnt? I would be selfish.

And my abusive ex did nothing but confirm those fears of mine for years to come.

I never got to ask my brother if he remembered, and that, if he did, I wanted him to know that it wasn’t his fault. I wanted to know he wasn’t carrying the same shame, guilt, and self loathing I was, because he was just as wonderful a presence in my life as my father.

My brother was my best friend. We told each other everything. We talked about the people we liked, we watched ALL the cartoons together, we played video games, we read each other’s shitty edgy teenage poetry. We did everything, except find closure in the pain we were carrying.

Or at least, that I was carrying. That I WILL carry until the day I die. Because I’ll never get to know if he was living with this too.

Because he died too.

When I was 16, I got a call from our birth mother asking if I had heard from him. That they couldn’t find him.

He died trying to save our cousin from a raging waters accident. Our cousin lived. He blames himself. My uncle blames himself for not being there. Our birth mother blames herself for not asking him to stay home.

I blamed myself for being his sister in the first place.

After I started working on my Disgusting Incest Porn story “The Weaver Family”, I forced myself to research sex abuse, personality disorders, and PTSD simply due to wanting to flesh out a believable storyline for these characters I enjoyed so much.

Not gonna dive into details, but I wanted to make an erotically charged story that showcases some of my lived experiences. Because after all, I ended up enjoying my abuse. I had to. If I didn’t, I’d risk letting myself feel pain for myself.

I wanted to tell this story about these people who overcame tremendous difficulties surrounding sex, sexuality, personal identity, isolation, and victimization. Because I wanted that for myself. I went into this KNOWING I wanted that.

I went into this expecting to hate Brian, the father figure, the proposed ‘monster’ of the family only to MUCH later realize he was the manifestation of my “I should have asked for help before it got this bad” subconscious.

I went through countless nights, battling with feelings of empathizing with a man who I would otherwise despise. I hated myself all over again because this story was forcing me to come to terms with my dark past.

The worst of the worst was how, every night, I had these visceral, horribly realistic, extremely painful nightmares I’d often wake up to screaming where my teeth would be smashed, ripped out, crumbling in my mouth as I talked.

And in real life, I didn’t even THINK about my teeth that much. I brush them, I go to bed, I never bother looking at them or worrying about them. I tried so hard to figure out if I had some weird issue with my teeth I wasn’t addressing but I kept coming up empty handed.

But I kept pushing through. I kept researching and learning about myself THROUGH the lenses of my gross porn characters. I didn’t realize Brian was so important until one day, randomly, a friend of mine noticed I had lost a lingering baby tooth.

They asked “wow! Have you ever seen an adult lose a tooth like that? Hah!”

And then it hit me.

I have.

My father was a journeyman, who made a decent amount of money and had health and dental insurance when he was alive. But he was visibly unhealthy in his older age. Despite being a warm and loving presence, there was an obvious issue even my child mind could spot.

My dad’s teeth were falling out. Constantly. He was in his early 50’s when I was about 10, and I would watch him pull these rotting teeth he never brushed years before I was even born, and I’d ask my mom “why?”

“Well, these things just happen as you get older. Everything’s fine, baby. Daddy’s gonna be alright.”

But.. why wasn’t he getting help? Why was my mom making excuses for this? I was so confused.

I watched a grown man, who I loved and adored, who treated me with open kindness and generosity, destroy his own mouth because he, like many adult men, felt like asking for help was a sign of weakness.

When this realization hit, I realized THAT was why I couldn’t stand writing for Brian. I couldn’t stand relating to someone who was CHOOSING not to ask for help because “weakness”. Because for all my life, through all my trauma.. I never asked for help.

I realized these visceral teeth nightmares weren’t some “I just need to brush more” bullshit. Not some “this website says teeth dreams are a sign of rebirth” bullshit.

This was about me. This was about the imagery I saw growing up.

I watched a man I adored hurt himself in the name of never having to ask for help. I kept my head down when I was told I wasn’t allowed to ask for help. I stayed silent while countless people harassed me for exploring my trauma through fiction and never asked for help.

I want to be strong. I really do. I want to be this brave, perfect example of a person who utilizes my creativity in a way that makes sense, is relatable, and genuinely constructive.

I want to have these kinds of deep, complex discussions with my community because I know we’ve all been through so fucking much. And with this story, I’ve finally found the recovery I need.

These OCs, these dumb nasty porn characters, have helped me address my PTSD enough that I can talk about it, at all. I was finally able to let myself cry, for ME, for ONCE, for the FIRST TIME since before I was 7 years old.

That Tony Hawk game I mentioned? Yeah, my boyfriend (bless him omg I had a breakdown) randomly mentioned it last night, and as he kept describing the gameplay features, I started to remember.

I remembered my brother, a week after my father passed, bringing me his PS2 and saying “I’m here for the weekend. Let’s play some video games.” One of them was that Tony Hawk game.

He kept me company while I grieved and I.. I couldn’t remember it, guys.

I didn’t remember a single detail about this night until I finally gave myself a chance to explore my PTSD. I never would have been able to recover such a beautiful memory..

I never would have been able to un-block these different moments, both beautiful and ugly, had I not started working on The Weaver Family, or any other story I’ve made about recovery from sex trauma.

PTSD has a funny way of functioning. PTSD will block out.. everything. Whole years are missing from my memories and have been for ages. I always just chocked it up to “bad memory”

I am so grateful for the communities I have. Because of my specific circumstances, my personal traumas, and my inherent desire for creative expression, I am always going to be grateful for fucky fandom spaces.

If I didn’t have creative freedom, I NEVER would have been able to explore my PTSD in a way that makes sense to me, in a way where I felt like I could have the control I needed. I DO need help. And this is me asking for it.

Please. For the love of all that is humane and rational and kind, please stop labeling all taboo erotica creators as abusive. I am so sure that there are people using these spaces in bad faith, but those people are in ALL spaces.

I am here for me. I am here for people LIKE me. I am here for support, both to give and receive. This is my cry for help. This is me saying, give me somewhere to go to be the person I am without being humiliated or shamed.

I need a place to build a community. I need to not feel alone. I need to give myself the chance to recover. I need to be able to explore these feelings. I am ALREADY in the shadows with my content. Already posting in private.

I deserve a space to be open, honest, and vulnerable.

This isn’t about antis or anti-antis or whatever the fuck. This is about safe outlets for people who truly need them. And I am not alone. It seems like every week, I receive DMs from people too scared to come forward.

I see and interact with so many people who are doing the same things that I am doing, exploring parts of themselves they literally cannot explore anywhere else, safely and in their control.

I don’t want to expose unwilling/underage eyes to my work. I just want my work to be available to anyone else who is also dealing with these feelings, which are already difficult to explore in ANY context.

Fandom and erotica may not be everyone’s favorite context for Metal Health and Trauma Recovery, but this? This is working for me. I learn more about myself and I grow more compassionate for others every day.

I can, without a single doubt, say that I am in recovery and it is going wonderfully. I just really hope that one day, others will be able to utilize this recovery method without having false accusations or harassment thrown their way.

No matter how disgusting you think I am, no matter what fucked up label you want to put on me, I know I am valid. I know myself better than ever, and I know exactly what I want and who I am going to be.

I am a free thinking, creative, independent artist who writes about my lived experiences, my fears, and my desires in the context I am most familiar with. I ask for control over my own narrative and spaces. I may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I am proud to be my own.

End of thread.

Thank you for reading. This was extremely, undoubtedly difficult to post.

Please stay safe. Be kind to your fellow human beings, and most importantly, yourself.