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The ABC’s of being a POS: Intro
(Edited 08/09/2024)
Note: This upcoming series is for entertainment and educational purposes only. If you wish to learn more about mental health, abusive behaviors, and support, please talk to your primary physician’s office, or a licensed professional.
For emergencies, please call 911, or call 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
Life is full of a healthy balance of people that deserve hugs or suplexes.
Sometimes both.
There’s a long list of examples of these people in both the past and present, public or private figures, and all types of relationships.
No matter what, the world has its shares of people that deserve attention as much as the others need to be starved from it.
This is dedicated to the second half.
By now you’ve assumed that the POS in the title does NOT mean “point of sale.” It means the other thing.
The one that made you think of a person or people who could understand physical actions more than a sentence about their behavior.
And even though one word or phrase will sometimes be used for each letter, they are not limited to them.
Consider each one a gateway into others that, like the ones chosen here, are tied to each other, and will be mentioned and even repeated within most of them.
So, if you or someone you know is a POS, and you’re looking for how to increase your villain potential, you’ve come to the wrong place.
After all, what better way to talk about the tricks and tips in ways that match your actions towards your targets/marks?
No matter what, remember this quote as this journey begins:
“If it hurts you, it’s about you.”
-Kingston Priest
P.S. – It is understood that there are those with undiagnosed or misdiagnosed mental conditions which will have similar behaviors mentioned here. This is in no way meant to offend them, or their related parties. This project is dedicated to those who choose to behave certain ways that deserve to be spoken about.
First: Animosity
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Live to Be a Hundred
This is my 100th post.
What!?
I’m smiling, laughing, and holding some tears back as I write this.
I didn’t have a set number to shoot for when I started. I had the original nine set to go, and figured that would be it.
Then it clicked that there’s more to say. “Maybe I can keep up with three posts a week.” I clearly had the time for it.
But I never imagined getting this far. At times, I didn’t think I’d live long enough to get to it.
And yet, here I am.
Wiser, arguably funnier with many I personally know. Grateful I’m catching myself better with most triggers, and not be discouraged in the ones yet to be managed. Even with most based on location.
I’m still doing my best to leave the unhealed people to their own lanes, yet celebrating the ones I left to their own.
Overall, it’s been a long and powerful set of changes that began in an early season. Always in growth, reminders of grace, and strengthening in faith.
I’ll be posting for as long as I’m allowed to. As I’ve said before, there will always be something new to say, something new to add on to past work, and encouragement to keep the faith in yourself above others. All while making sure that I need a break, which may come soon.
Thanks again for sticking it out with me.
D.F.
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Down Low
There is a certain depth that I reach when I’m done with someone’s nonsense. It’s one that others have subjected me too many times because of who I was.
A tiny few have reconnected because of then-proposed and later confirmed growth, but it’s the others that maintained a distance that I draw deeper knowledge from.
Even before my mental health journey began, I had moments of being done with people. Either telling them in private messages, blocking, or the one time to someone’s face.
That depth seems to strengthen with each time, which is a good thing.
Sometimes it was scary. At first because it was new, and given other emotions that I had to wall up to spare others, I was unsure how to control it. Now, I see it like a program running in the background, updating itself with each new account of threats to the entire system.
How they feel about me cutting them off or limiting exposure is their fight, just as much as it is for those you’ve cut ties with. To do that with people that are “danger close” to you does warrant cautiousness, so long as you don’t lose the desire to do so when that distance is established.
D.F.
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The Long Kiss Goodnight
There’s nothing like that first genuine kiss after a dark time of uncomfortable partners. It feels like you’ve never kissed a person before. Or that even the good ones in the past were prerequisites for the one that holds you as close as you hold them.
It hits more when you’ve grown to accept and change from any time you may have been uncomfortable yourself. That level of self-discovery can heighten your senses on who you desire as a romantic partner, because you learned what you should be to have a lasting one.
You’ll see many people talk down or praise the “hook-up culture” that’s running wild these days. Others, regardless of age, have learned from uncomfortable experiences how that life isn’t for them.
They want someone to reflect their emotional goals.
A partner that refuses to deviate from their overall goals.
Someone to not reflect trauma bonds.
Someone whose body, mind, and soul was waiting for you to level up and arrive at the right time, and vice versa.
If you so desire that person* for you, and you’re already on the path of self-healing, trust me when I say the wait it worth it.
Whether or not it’s unplanned, you two will know that your 100th kiss will feel as wonderful and safe as the first one was.
You’ve always deserved it.
D.F.
*or people, within specific consensual arrangements.
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The Hunt
(Update: 4/13/2023 – The search is over. Start date pending. Leaving this entry up, though.)
There’s something that I need to confess about these entries, and the time I’ve had to write them. Hopefully, by the time this is posted, circumstances have changed, and I won’t continue scraping by as I have.
As of this writing, I have been unemployed for an uncomfortable amount of time.While I haven’t been without, the pressure has become more intense. More reasons that I’ve applied to work that I’ve constantly reframed to be temporary, even jobs that my health may be on the line again.
Meanwhile, even temp agencies have been unreliable. One intake appointment after another, leading nowhere outside a statement that they’ll reach out once something in my fields of interest come up.
There have been multiple rewrites of resumes, cover letters. Full interviews with either future rejections or shifty requests for sensitive information. Memory slipping of appointments with my state to improve my conditions, and nearly being chewed out by a county rep for the time lapse in replies.
Even my therapist spoke to me the very things I had said to myself but didn’t completely take to action. That I need whatever can help me get by until that better job comes. I hated myself for some time after our session, but finally accepting that truth coming from the outside was met with pushing forward in a stronger pattern.
I can only go for so long believing that the faults, falsehoods, and F.U’s from employers and more are stepping stones to something greater. That all the missed opportunities are clearing the way for a powerful blessing.
It’s been hard. Too hard to hold on to that feeling most days.
The ones that can handle news like this, ones that aren’t entirely affected by it yet still care for me, are the only ones that know. They’ve helped in every way they can, and I’m forever grateful for it. Others, two primarily, will make my time more uncomfortable than they ever did in older periods of being a dislocated worker.
But this “down time” hasn’t been all bad.
Any time I’ve been on the clock somewhere, the things I’ve written about in here since August 2022 were in the back of my head for years, waiting for expression in any form I chose.
Granted, there is a fictional project that weaves pieces of my trauma into the main character’s life, but even this time has given me reason to write more realistically. Heal the parts that couldn’t wait to be thrown into another story.
Just a way to talk about them plainly, yet artistically, without sounding high-brow, which is far from who I am.
Even with programs like ProWritingAid occasionally badgering me for edits here and there, this time has made me a better writer.
Outside of that, it’s made me a better human.
Wherever my next line of employment is, I hope that it’s a place that reflects the things that I’ve spoken about since this journey began.
If not, I pray that it’s a stepping stone towards that.
While it would be rude of me to think that these entries have been for nothing, each one has been given the time and place to manifest for more than just a chance for self-healing, discovering and refortifying boundaries, and to inspire the same for others.
I look back and see that it’s the beginning of something beyond my imagination. The start of something beyond my times of tears and frustration, all felt in between the blogging and writing the same info for different apps.
Something good will come of finally revealing this tumultuous yet progressive part of my life.
I’m claiming it.
D.F.
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Gaslight
The lengths some people will go to make you feel your perspective is inferior to theirs is amazing and sad.
It doesn’t matter how close you are, either. Loves, friends, parents, in-laws, anyone with a shred of toxicity in them will make an attempt on your thoughts, especially they are (in)directly threatened.
You could be told to disbelieve your views to your face, and even subtly through videos sent to you. But you know better to tell them it doesn’t work.
Narcissitic and toxic tactics have tuly evolved with the times. They’re only daring to hold their stances because they know methods of healing and emotional growth has strenghtened by both traditional and progressive means.
But as it’s been stated in this blog, and wherever healing is found, talking to the suspects about themselves is a dead end. What they did and are doing to you “didn’t happen.” And the more they do it, the more you’re allowed to believe that love and/or respect no longer exists for them, either.
D.F.
P.S. I’m surprised I didn’t use this title sooner 😉
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The Voice
It’s hard to trust anyone that doesn’t talk to themselves, at least not the ones that say things that would land them in any form of custody.
How else would you hear the person inside of you talking sense towards you during the darkest times? Or even calmness during an inner storm? Those times that you choose wisely who to talk with others about.
Often we assign that voice with a type of ideal person, some composite of things you want out of friends, and maybe even a lover. They pop up at the most convenient times, and can even prevent you from negative rumination.
Sometimes, anyway.
No matter what, they represent the part of you that believes in you, even when you don’t believe in yourself. And the times that you believe like they do, never tune them out. Because as a whole, sometimes you’re all that you have until someone proves otherwise.
D.F.
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The Descent
(Updated 11/26/2023)
Sometimes, I’ve scared myself.
The more I learned about narcissism and toxicity, the more I woke up about the traits that I put into my own life. Never mind who I learned it from. I’ve discussed it a few times in the past.
I even think about now, where the simplest comments can have hidden layers of getting what I think I want or need from someone. No matter how trivial or vital, it’s like I want anything I say to lead towards my satisfaction.
I could even risk discarding the provider once they met my need.
I’m certain that for as long as it took me to internalize the negative effects it has on others, I did this. In fact, I know I have, and have often felt the karmic response quickly.
This led me to reminders on how bad I’ve felt in responses to my past behaviors. As well as how I feel when I almost say something that would even invite those thoughts, or inspire provision from a would-be target. I think of how bad it was to have realized that in multiple relationship styles.
It’s a constant checking of myself on not repeating what worked on me for decades. To some ways, even now.
What the inspirations of those actions were for me, I would hate to do that to anyone else. And if I asked even one friend in particular if they felt I tried to talk them into something uncomfortable, I would dread yet accept the answer. Only because I know I would make sure it never happened again to anyone, old or new.
Hating these feelings seems to be my proof that I’m still nothing like the guilty parties, or more importantly my old self. I may never know if they feel remorse after they’ve duped anyone like I would or do, and chances are they feel it at some point.
That’s not my business.
They’ve gained enough of my energy, and these last few months have given me time to reclaim it for myself.
I’m the one that matters here. I’m the one thing I can control. Not just in preventing toxic societal and generational mimicry. But by limiting or stopping their lack of empathy from making me equal or worse than them.
D.F
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Fighter
CW: Domestic Abuse
(Updated 11/26/2023)
There’s no sugarcoating the effects of physical and emotional abuse a child may bury away in their adult mind.
Into adulthood, they may keep it buried. They might do it by being the life of the party, forcing extroversion on themselves like a drug. Which sadly, the physical drugs can be an option to keep the burial plot intact as well.
For some of us that were abused at any age, the muscle memory for overall self-defense might never go away completely. Not when you find yourself in the presence of one or multiple parties involved in the abuse, and can tell they’d never admit to it.
They may even “forget” it ever happened and dismiss or divert your thinking from their judgment.
That’s why it can be hard for those that (re)discover this to connect with genuine people. The new people may never touch them in a harmful way, but even innocent words from them could remind the victim of the precursors to those bruises. Or worse.
I can’t say that what you went through is what strengthened you and that you should feel brave for surviving it. It’s cliche, tired, and throws more dirt on the emotional burial site.
You deserved to be safe. Protected. Loved without conditions.
And you still deserve it.
What happened, or even happening to you, should not exist. You deserve to speak up about it. No matter your age, their social or familial connection, don’t let it eat you from within.
They revel in believing you suffer in silence.
Fight back by speaking up, if and when you can.
It’s your turn to win.
D.F.
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Top Five
(Updated 11/26/2023)
When was the last time you listed things you enjoy?
You know, the things that make you glad to have endured the emotional hurdles that we’re all facing in life?
Some will refer to that list as counting your blessings, which, of course, they are. I have several. Despite their uncomfortable (former) connections, those blessings gave me the time and space needed to clear my head and make more posts about.
The blessings, or whatever you wish to call them, are important to take in. They’re a reminder of the good you deserve to feel. Feelings that you deserved in place of darker times.
And depending on the companies you keep, it’s what you want for others that don’t reflect said dark days. Or be a constant reminder of them when people refuse to change for the better like you have.
I have felt the blessings through many people, no matter how similar or different we are. Ones that trust and believe that I’m working to be better than I was when they first met me.
Some of them met me at much scarier times, but they don’t hold them against me. Not as much as I have towards myself.
Sometimes I still do, they those friends remind me it doesn’t have to be that way.
I’m grateful for their willingness to see what I finally saw in myself. That being the person capable of looking at even a part of that list to keep me from regressing to the unhealed days.
From choosing other ways to live life. Other reasons to stay in it.
Feel the power of your lists of joy. Their power is undeniable.
D.F.
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Misery
(Updated 11/262023)
Being of service to those in need can be a taxing act, mostly when they take advantage of your free time to be there for them. Two things they request become twenty, and they feel no remorse towards your discomforts about it.
They have the luxury of not knowing what it’s like to be the person worth avoiding or ignoring, simply because they refuse to act as if they’re not afraid to lose you.
They will even dare to ask you where others are. Ones they expect to be there during their “hour of need” based on circumstantial ties.
But when you’re gone, when your time is limited only to yourself and no one else, they will do everything they can to shame you for your choices. They might even love bomb you back onto your radar.
Naturally, the other weapons hide in the love bombing. The classic guilt trips, the passive aggression, the very things that drove others to resent being kind enough to help them any time they could. Curling their toes as they fear the reaction when they tell them “no.”
It’s even sadder when their reaction doesn’t come immediately. Their toxicity shows when they come for you weeks or months later, to get that victory you denied them long ago.
It’s not our fault that they refuse to see how damaging they are to people they claim to love. If that love is conditional to their servitude, they cannot expect to have the sentiment be returned. At least not with the same energy.
In the end, we serve these people because of who they are in themselves. We may risk loving the person the abuser could have been, versus who they’ve chosen to be.
And the most important feeling of all? Our boundaries, our distance will show them how much we love ourselves more than we may love the abuser again.
D.F.
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