It’s started, they’re both in therapy!
It’ll probably take a really long time for Billie to see any changes, though, let alone those of us stuck out here in realtime.
It’s not really up to us to forgive or excuse, but the trouser-leg of the universe where Billie does what Ruth wants has Ruth shredded to pieces by her grandfather, so I’d say no, Billie did the right thing not listening to Ruth.
getting angry and shouting is not the same thing as verbal abuse. Sometimes you get a little pissed off and shout at someone who probably doesn’t deserve it. We’ve all done it at some point
Maybe we’ve all done it. It doesn’t stop it being abuse.
Even if you can understand where Ruth comes from, the behavior is abusive and needs to be addressed.
All Ruth needs to do is apologize. “Sorry I snapped, can I make it up to you?” Something abusers never do is own up to their shit, admit they are wrong and try to fix it. It’s as simple as that.
I do not see any way in which Billie actually made it worse. Sure, Billie is now a target, but PuddingHead already mentioned her, so she was going to be a target anyways.
Other than that, Billie being around is a net positive. And, well, Ruth shouldn’t try to be that controlling, anyways.
There are few things more embarrassing than someone else being witness to your abuse. You know in your gut that what’s happening isn’t supposed to, and even if you know perfectly well who’s at fault here, there’s a small part of it that still feels like it reflects on you, makes you weak, humiliates you.
Billie hoped humor would defuse the situation, but it didn’t work out )=
Okay here’s the thing. You are assuming that Ruth has the resources or the tools to do something other than what she did here. She doesn’t.
She’s still not all that far away from suicidal territory, she’s being forced into a job that was making her miserable, she’s being separated from Billie who was the only person that could reach her on any level, the group of people that are supposed to respect her and follow her rules know that she was just released from the hospital for a mental health crisis, she was just the victim of some really serious verbal abuse TWO SECONDS AGO, and it’s likely she’s scared that because of Billie’s interference, her grandfather is going to make life more miserable for Billie too.
There is a reason that Ruth coped with her stress by drinking so much it almost killed her and wanting to die. Repeated trauma, a life of chronic abuse, and high levels of stress tend to do that to a person. She isn’t talking it out with Billie cause she doesn’t know how.
Billie totally helped: she actually got Sir to stop yelling at Ruth’s face and go away for the moment! (Even though Billie didn’t know what to do, or if it would work, or if she’d have to fight him, or what.) Billie was a friggin badass, and got Ruth the space to breathe, and Ruth knows it, even though her first reaction was to scream into that space. You know?
Our only hope is that Billie can use her own father’s abusive habits (neglect interspersed with payment for misdeeds and sweeping things under rugs) to turn him against Clint. If Billie threatens a big enough stink, Mr. Billingsworth might decide to sweep Clint under the rug, rather than Ruth.
A story I’m reading as it’s posted on another site posits a device which does just that – allowing the user to view all outcomes of a choice, and pick the “best” one. Save-scumming reality.
What’s the catch? Well, much like Two Face and his scarred coin, the user eventually becomes completely dependent on the device to make any decision, no matter how minor. In the story, this happened to the inventor of the device, and the “solution” that they hit upon was to make sure they were not born the sort of person who would use it … or, in fact, born at all.
Not okay exactly; she’s lashing out, it’s a natural, expected response to trauma. It may take Ruth a lot of practice and discipline to learn to do something else instead.
Her behaviour still totally sucks and impacts Billie, though — I can’t tell whether Billie took it personally, but it’s clear that Ruth is aware that she effed up and oughtn’t yell in Billie’s face like that. Hopefully Ruth will try to clean it up later. It’s a pain.
While I definitely feel for Ruth, that doesn’t make it okay. If it were a one-off thing, sure it’d be excusable, but with the pattern these two have going, it’s waaaay more concerning.
I agree, it’s a really harmful pattern. I think Ruth knows it is, too. However, I don’t think that Ruth can simply stop on her own volition, because if she could, she already would’ve, from the other times she’s realized it’s really bad to lash out at Billie.
If I was her therapist, I might suggest picking another reaction, and practicing the hell out of it, until she could choose it even under stress.
This is actually much better than most of what Ruth has said or done before, though. At least, when it comes to being angry and not handling it well. I mean, the stuff she said before was outright assault.
What I’m saying is, she’s at least moving in the right direction.
And, honestly, it’s not that much worse than some of what Billy said when she was in full on depressed mode while Ruth was gone.
Yup. I’ve been in the Billie position a lot with stuff like this and try really hard to be in the Ruth position as little as possible. Unfortunately, I usually managed that with externalizing the pain as self-injury instead which… wasn’t great.
I can relate, I have DID and used to self harm as well. I’ve been the Billie and the Ruth, though I’ve worked hard to not be either, especially the Ruth, being autistic complicates things. My daughter is also autistic and we’ve had to work hard not to end up in a Billie and Ruth situation, we finally came to a good solution when I get angry I take space and deep breaths and when my daughter gets angry, I remind her of her choices and give her a stress ball. There was a time when my daughter was quite literally physically abusing me and I was left fighting my C-PTSD and not responding well as i tried to protect myself. This was hard because it started getting bad when she was 3 and reached its peak when she was 4. My preschooler was beating me black and blue everyday and my only recourse was to either fight back, which I didn’t want to do but sometimes when I was trapped I had to use force to get away, or to hide, I generally chose to hide. I was suicidal at this point and didn’t know what to do. Thankfully, I stumbled on a site that gave me techniques to try with her that lead to things making a complete 180. Now she hasn’t gotten physical with me in 6 months and is handling anger much better. Basically, my personal experience makes me confident that Ruth and Billie can learn a better pattern.
*Internet hugs* I know I had (and most likely still have) a lot of repressed anger. In 27 years, I have only played the part of Ruth in this situation once. It was about six years ago actually, and it was me screaming at my now deceased biological father “If you ever speak to my mother like that again I will kill you myself!!!” while holding him up with both hands around his neck…I didn’t kill him, he took care of that fourteen months afterwards, but by God I wanted to just squeeze until his trachea broke. I was unleashing 12 years of built up repressed anger at the man responsible for most of it and for emotionally and economically abusing and controlling my mother, myself, and my brothers and I nearly broke but afterwards I was frightened of myself and to be honest have been afraid of myself ever since. I generally limit as much contact with people outside of work as possible aside from my friends, because I never, ever want to snap like that again. So I do a lot of yoga, some meditation, and staying inside a storage unit for an hour every Saturday afternoon so that I can scream my head off while beating a punching bag. It’s not a healthy solution, but it keeps me in control, and other people safe so it will do for now. Especially because I’m already taking medications for social anxiety, depression, asbergers’, and an attention disorder, I don’t want to mix anything else in there.
Ok. I just realized that was a bit personal and I want to apologize for that. That’s something I haven’t even told my psychiatrist yet and I definitely did not need to heap it out on everyone here. I’m very very sorry. I’m just, going to go now. Might not show up in the comments for the next couple of days. Sorry.
@Cerberus thanks. The thing is, I’m not afraid of becoming my…I’m a little uncomfortable using the word “father” to describe him, because he never acted like one once we moved from Michigan to California when I was 9. I’m afraid I’m going to be worse. Because he could be emotionally abusive, financially controlling, and browbeating with his weird “be better than me” mentality, but he was never physically abusive. And I, well when I do get angry (again, inside storage unit) I get very physically violent. And, that outburst, it wasn’t the first (or the last) time that I’ve actively thought about and or fantasized about killing someone. And that’s, that’s really scary for me. Because, what if I am some sort of monster who takes pleasure in harming others? What if I am predisposed to violence? Am I threat to the safety of others? If so, should I get rid of the threat to other people preemptively? All these questions are in my head, and I don’t have any concrete answers. And the possibilities scare me. I’m going to be a full time teacher starting next school year. What if there’s something wrong in my head and I snap and hurt one of my students? Sorry about unloading all this, it’s just, nice to finely get it out and tell someone about it. And while I do trust my psychiatrist, I don’t want anymore medications. I’m on four already, and I don’t want to either have a fifth one that messes around with everything else or become addicted to any of my medications. So, uh thanks for listening. I honestly think you’re one of the best people I’ve ever communicated. The shear amount of strength you have to have gone through all that trauma, and to still be such a good person who’s a rock for others (your students, your fiancée, some of us commenters) it’s amazing. Ah, jeez now I’m just rambling. Just, thanks again. *hugs*
Having thoughts like that sounds scary, but they do not make you a bad person. Knowing your demons and doing your best to combat them – Which it sounds like you are –
(i do not know if staying away from others is productive or neccessary, but the fact that you are concerned enough about others to want to do right by them is in and of itself a sign of you being a good person)
I hope you find a path through the anger that allows you some peace.
I know I do not know you, but I have come to really value your perspective in the comment section, so I wanted to say something. I hope this gesture of support was appropriate, and I also want to offer internet hugs.
Think of him as the “sperm donor” rather than your father, because it sounds like he had no concept of how to be one. It sounds like your whole family is better off without him. My only question is, was he abused himself as a kid? Most abusive parents were abused themselves (sorry, can’t remember citation for this), and his abuse took its toll on you, but you’re resisting the temptation to be like him. Were your grandparents okay with the way he acted or were they unaware of what a flaming asshole they’d raised? Or maybe Father Dearest was just a sociopath.
Regardless, don’t worry about ventilating here. Sometimes it’s easier to confess something to non-judgmental strangers than a professional sitting in the same room. And the main things are: 1) you’re seeking help; and 2) the bastard can never harm you again.
Again, I don’t think you’ll become physically violent. One of my students struggles with homicidal ideation. Just like suicidal ideation, it is a matter of intrusive thoughts and does not mean you are a present danger to others on its own.
Talking to a therapist about the homicidal ideation helps my student a lot. It could for you as well.
@ LWS oh his father was an abusive drunken piece of shit from what I know. His mother however was a good parent. And all his live he didn’t want to be his father and once the California job offer didn’t go through, he did end up becoming like my grandpa minus the physical beatings and heavy drinking. When how my parents finally split, because he cheated on her emotionally, grandma and both of his still living brothers sided with us over him when they found out how he’d turned out. I think it was a combination of stress, his own trauma, and a gambling addiction that made him become abusive. Still didn’t stop me from being relieved when he ODed on a painkiller prescription and died. Then felt guilty because everyone else was crying while I felt happy. Then eventually got over the guilt.
@Rukduk, don’t worry about oversharing. A lot of sharing seems to happen in these comment sections, and we help each other. A comic strip is an unexpected place to find a supportive community, but here we are.
And it does, in fact, sound like you’re doing lots of healthy things to manage your anger. Even the storage unit, which you hopefully won’t need forever.
medication for aspergers? o.0 I was not aware such a thing existed (I even asked r/aspergers about it one time, iirc). I’m half hopeful, half skeptical… if you don’t mind more sharing, what symptoms is it supposedly for?
also, I second all the nice things other people said 🙂 and, maybe you could talk to a therapist/counsellor/etc about the anger, someone who doesn’t prescribe medication? or read some books on anger – the more I learn about mine, the less scary it is, and recently it seems to be transforming into something that’s… actually positive and not destructive. which I did not expect at all. 🙂
What BBC said. There’s one thing I take for the anxiety, and one for the depression. They’re supposed to work together or something like that. Then there’s the aderal for my attention disorder. It’s better than when I was taking sertraline, because my body built up a tolerance to that, to the point that the dosage was having to be increased ever four months. Which had the side effect of making me feel even more angry and aggressive before I got of off that. The fourth one is a prescription for sleeping pills for insomnia, which I have to combine with a CPAP machine because of sleep apnea. I’m generally, a mess mentally. Physically I’m in great condition though, so I got that going for me.
I’ve never ever had deep breaths help me. You can wait for it to calm down, but the best way I find to do that is to just go something else, ideally something that makes you happy.
And lo, we see the unintended cycle of abuse. Not that I blame Ruth persay, sometimes people are in shitty situations and have tons of stress. Good ole Sir has pretty much ‘shown’ that blowing up and browbeating people is how you react when upset. When people, especially a young woman who mourns her dead parents and is apparently always compared to one of those parents in a negative light, is exposed to so much negative sometimes that’s all they know. This thing with Sir definitely explains a lot of Ruth’s behavior. Note that I said explains, not excuses. Billie was only trying to help and defend her here. Somebody in Ruth’s situation needs positive influences in their life, along with counseling. And getting far away from that old bastard so she can heal.
Also I almost wish puddinghead could see this because I’ll definitely give Ruth this: she KNOWS now that she shouldn’t have the authority of an RA. She knows she shouldn’t be one, that people would be better off with someone else. That she has done wrong, intimidated her charges through fear like Sir does to her. And…she’s still being forced into that job. And puddinghead won’t consider Ruth’s opinion on the matter. That’s super fucked up.
That nickname does lend itself well to a song for her to ing if she finally does see things for what they are. “And at least I see the light! And it’s like the fog has lifted…”.
Did Ruth ever want to be an RA in the first place? I wonder if Sir has been this controlling since he was granted custody, if so maybe it was his idea after seeing the bills for her freshman year.
Yeah, the stress of surviving an abusive encounter can set your nerves on edge and make it easier to blow up on non-involved folks or folks who try to support*. Doesn’t make it right and when done frequently can just end up being the passing down of abuse, but it’s a thing that can happen when the fear and pain is running that hot.
Though I’m a little worried, because Ruth seems to be making a habit out of “blow up, try to push Billie away, beat herself up” every time she feels trapped in an abusive dynamic with an external person (“Sir” and Mary) and that’s not a habit she’s going to need to break for her own recovery.
*My ex would frequently blow up when they came back from dealing with her abusive family. Unfortunately for me, that escalated to blaming me for fictional things and gaslighting to justify the blowing up and the need to dump that negativity and pain somewhere.
*hugs* I am so sorry that you have been in that situation. I know when it comes to things like this…there’s a thin line between being understanding, such as knowing that your ex has an abusive family and Ruth’s crappy grandfather, and needing to separate because that understanding goes both ways and sometimes you can only take so much of being an angry dump load.
What is holding you together Cerberus? The more and more I read what you’ve written about the sort of nightmares you’ve had to live through, I’m astonished that someone is capable of not only surviving it, but keeping it all seared in razor sharp detail on every inch of their soul so they never forget it, when by rights it should have been washed away. How do you do it?
Lots of therapy, anti-depressants, and using a webcomic as therapy?
I dunno, I never feel as put together and functional as others see me as. Like, I feel like a ball of damage, bailing wire, and duct tape. So to have folks like you think I’m really strong and impressive is a bit foreign feeling at times.
Even if you don’t feel that way or have a hard time believing it, that”s how I feel. You inspire me to be a better person at the best of times, and even at the worst give me some perspective on my troubles, making me realize that no matter how bad I think I got it, you and so many others have had it much, mucheck worse and havery still come out on top.
You may be human as the rest of us, but don’t for one second belive that that doesn’t make you a superhero.
If you take an super-expensive, brand new lambourgini and an old family sedan held together mostly by duct tape and wishful thinking, and try to drive each through an active war zone, exactly one of them has a reasonable chance of getting to the other side.
There’s a lot to be said for the ability to keep going running when a lot of important bits have been blown off or are currently rattling around in the trunk.
See, I’m pretty sure the big reason at least some of us think you’re strong and impressive is that we can’t even imagine having been in your shoes and the fact that you are even remotely functional and are able to stand up for other people like the kid at your school even so is a lot more than a lot of us feel we could do.
I mean, the comparatively minor issues I have in my life sometimes feel like all I am capable of dealing with, so I’m almost certain that if I had had to live through your life I wouldn’t even be functional enough to write comments about a web comic, let alone live a life.
we all underestimate our own strength. When I was working as an EMT assistant, I was terrified of having to eventually deal with the dead and dying rather than just the injured or old. I’ve been getting screaming panic attacks just from thinking about the concept of death since the age of 4. But when I actually had to be in that situation, I don’t think I’ve ever been that calm and focused before in my life.
My point is, to quote Superman and Grant Morrison: You are so much stronger than you think you are. and so are we all.
@Cerberus, I definitely identify with that. Have you ever read Marbles, by Ellen Forney? It’s a graphic novel about the author’s struggle with bipolar. I like it in large part because it shows what wellness looks like in the context of a chronic mental illness, and the balancing act required to maintain it. That’s a story I’ve hardly seen anywhere else.
Anyways, there’s a page where she talks about how she always wanted to meet a high-functioning bipolar who would sit down with her and tell her everything would be ok, and her gradual realization that she *was* a high-functioning bipolar. I may have cried when I read that page. It always looks messier from the inside. I am very professionally and personally successful, but I’m also frequently white-knuckling my way through. People never see that bit.
But you know what? Success and struggle don’t negate each other. Both can be true.
Imposter syndrome is weird like that. And if you don’t think you’re successful enough to suffer from imposter syndrome, that’s the imposter syndrome talking.
Considering that Ruth facepalms right after yelling at Billie, I think she still has a lot of anger against her, but it appears to quickly evaporate when Billie runs off and Ruth realizes what she’s done and how much she acted like Sir. If the symbolism is the case (and your explanation does make a lot of sense), I suppose it can be made into an extended metaphor of Ruth working hard to not recycling old behavior and going straight to replacing her negative influences with loving people like Billie. I hope that she succeeds in her endavours!
I think that’s a fair reading. She’s angry at sir, angry at herself, angry for lashing out. And angry at recycling (WHY MUST THOSE CANS BE SO BLUE?!?!?).
But yeah, seriously, I think the metaphor might be somewhat intentional.
You shouldn’t be abusing things for being blue, Ruth. Did you think maybe they don’t WANT to be blue? Maybe they’re trying to be green, but force themselves to stop being blue?
One, two, three, four,
I declare a reference war.
Five, six, seven, eight,
try to keep the stories straight.
(Nine, ten, eleven, twelve,
but not heterosexual.)
Anybody who comes down that elevator is getting a garbage can in the face (except if it’s amber/amazi-girl, given her reflexes). And Billie was just trying to help, awkward as it made things (though probably enough to stop Clint). :-:
This…actually went better than I thought. I expected this to end in a break up. I mean this isn’t GREAT….and they could still break up…but idk…I could also see them talking to each other once Ruth cools off.
Especially since the last time she did this “blow up at Billie and push her away” thing in response to dealing with abuse, she basically became catatonic on her bed for two days straight.
Her eye color is indicative of her emotional state, similar to how you can tell whether Amazi-girl or Amber is running the show by whether or not her face has blushes (blush = Amber, no blush = AG. in case you were unaware)
Aaaand cue Ruth going on a self-loathing spiral for allowing her anger to be misdirected towards someone who was trying to help rather than the actual source of it. Hopefully she can talk that over with the psychiatrist I should damn well hope she’ll be ordered to see in the wake of all that’s happened.
*”Being in therapy is a sign of being weak AND NO GRANDDAUGHTER OF MINE is allowed to be perceived as being weak. Also, I will now strangulate a kitten while insulting baby ducks.”
This latest arc has been pretty tiresome to read. I love it, but half a week of tense buildup in Chloe’s office followed a tense buildup to Ruth exploding because she’s afraid and hurt is really exhausting.
Sometimes I go away for a couple days or even weeks so that I can return and read it all at once; it’s way less harrowing that way.
Either way, I think we could do with a palette cleanser: surely somebody, somewhere, is being delightful.
I don’t think Billie’s attitude has anything to do with it – Ruth either didn’t want her grandfather to see Billie because he’d use it against her, or she didn’t want Billie to see how she’s treated by her grandfather. Possibly both.
It’s not Billie’s fault, it’s Clint’s.
Billie was just there, so she gets to take a little piece of the lashing that Ruth wants to direct at Sir.
Ruth probably didn’t want Billie there so that
– Billie wouldn’t become Clint’s target
– Billie wouldn’t see Ruth at her most vulnerable and abused
– Possible: so that Ruth could take the abuse like she’s accustomed to, without an added stressful variable.
– Possible: Ruth might have even known that she’d probably lash out afterwards, although that would be impressive insight on her part, and she would’ve preferred to lash out at inanimate objects, not her girlfriend. But mostly the first two.
For me, this was entirely expected, so my reaction was very much a…I don’t know, a sigh of ‘well, there went the outburst of pent-up stress and anger.’ I’m not disappointed in her, but it’s sad to see her lash out against Billie like this. Background-wise, I have a different history of abuse than Ruth, but this sort of anger is very familiar to me: both lashing out inappropriately at people who didn’t deserve that much of my anger, and the physically aggressive rage. I would go to my room or the basement and punch pillows, rip apart paper, or I would punch a wall. And then the anger would drain so quickly it would leave me with shaking hands and a sick feeling in my stomach. I get how she’s feeling in these strips, so it hits pretty close to home.
It’s horrible that Ruth is being placed back in this RA position, a position which will do no one any good at all, and she knows it. I don’t think she’s likely to go back to her physical abuse- because she was making efforts around the end to be a better RA, but the stress and responsibility is not something she needs right now. And to make matters worse, Mary is still there, and not being transferred. After feeling like she might escape this one awful thing, she gets shoved back into the same cage.
I guess my hopes are that she sticks with her therapy, maybe sees a counselor. I hope she can take those steps forward soon and work on her anger and coping skills, I hope she doesn’t end up isolating herself further, because this is so awful and painful to watch.
And Billie, who has been downright selfless lately and I wouldn’t ask for more of her really, I nevertheless hope she doesn’t entirely give up on Ruth.
Panel 1: Billie recounting her dad’s dismissive ignoring of her fills me with so many feels, because it’s so painful to not even be valued enough as a human being as to be addressed directly and for her to go through that as much as she has with her own dad only to re-experience it here is filling me with all the sad feels.
Panel 2: Oh Billie, trying so hard to be cute and flirty. In a perfect universe, this should be a happy moment. You chased off the abuser hurting your gf. It’s romantic as fuck. But, Ruth is not in a mode where she can even access that part of her brain right now. She’s in full panic death spiral and you just put yourself in the exact danger she tried to martyr herself to protect you from. :c
Back to Panel 1: And I understand Ruth tripping to that fear, that she told Billie to go upstairs. Her grandfather is dangerous and doesn’t play nearly close to fair and is fond of exploiting power dynamics in order to trap and punish people.
Ruth really really wanted to sacrifice herself to save Billie (which sadly likely had a good portion to do with a form of self-injury and depression-spiraling). She stayed mum on Billie to her grandpa, told her to go upstairs so she wouldn’t be anywhere in the vicinity. She wanted Billie to avoid the awful that was “sir” and now he knows who she is, what she looks like, and where she lives.
Which… yeah, Billie was kinda already fucked on that account thanks to Ms. Shithead, so I’m glad she intervened even if Ruth’s panic doesn’t think so yet.
And there’s probably also an element of not wanting to be seen at her worst. No one wants to be seen as they are in the middle of receiving abuse. The way they freeze up, disassociate, thrash and scream and try to run away. It’s… embarrassing thanks to the way society judges people for receiving abuse. Often over-scrutinizing their actions for signs of fault.
Certainly it added another element to my rape that everyone could see how I froze, disassociated, and the way I tried to rationalize what happened immediately afterwards to try and make it less than it was and regain some semblance of agency, even to the point of shaking the bastard’s hand afterwards like it was all some nice positive experience that hasn’t left me with years of PTSD flashbacks.
And when you judge yourself for those actions, knowing someone you care about saw those same things… it can hurt and it can feel shameful and you can end up wanting nothing more to push them away.
So yeah, I understand why Ruth gets down the bad thought process she does here, but…
I think another element is that Ruth doesn’t want Billie to see how she is when she’s around her grandfather. She’s danced around the issue and Billie said as much in yesterday’s strip – she doesn’t talk about it. Having people you weak see you when you’re weak can be really hurtful, because you feel they’ll think less of you for your failure to stand up for yourself. Ruth tries to maintain a tough shell to protect herself from the world, and she doesn’t want Billie to see what she’s like without the shell.
But no, it’s a really important point to emphasize, because yeah, it’s a factor that isn’t talked about nearly enough in discussions of abuse.
How weak you feel to be observed in a trauma state. Making the sacrifices that you do, devolving into the person you need to be to survive, suffering through your trauma responses which are so rarely dignified.
It feels awful to be seen in that state, especially by people you care about and who you want to feel well of you. And it can be easier to slip into a self-abusing spiral when you’re observed than when you can take time afterwards to clean yourself up and minimize what happened*.
*Whenever I visited my parents alone, I’d spend about 30 minutes afterwards in the car blowing up at the air, hurting myself, crying my eyes out, punching the seat, and cleaning up so I could be ready to go “eh, it was all right, same old” when my partner at the time asked about it (the fact that I wasn’t really allowed to show strong emotions to her without her berating me for it also really didn’t help).
First of all, I’m sorry, Cerberus. You didn’t deserve that, and I’m glad you’re in a healthier place. *hugs*
Second, ugh, yeah. I remember once a bunch of boys sexually harassed me and another girl, in the library at my high school and what horrified me most was people seeing me freeze up, shaking, and dropping the book I was holding twice. Those were folks I didn’t know, for the most part, but if they were…..I don’t want to think about it. All I can picture is a very crabby outburst.
We saw this a little bit with Sal too – when her brother kept picking at her uniform and asking about it while she just wants to get in, exchange 5 minute pleasantries, and duck out without people pointing out the things she does to avoid fighting with her parents and having them dish out more emotional abuse than is normal. Or how determined AG is not to freeze around folks ever again.
Cerberus, I’m so glad you’re at the point you’re at now: healthy, stable, and able to look at things with a wiser eye. But I’m so sorry for everything that’s happened to you. (hugs if appropriate)
Like, yes, I understand the panic and fear that built up to this, but Ruth blows up here on someone who absolutely didn’t deserve it (and she very much knows this in the panels to follow) and it’s part of a pattern she’s done every time she feels trapped and hounded by an abuser (she did the same blow-up at Billie and push her away thing when Mary was targeting her).
And the content of her blow-up is… well, channeling elements of “sir”. Why didn’t you do as I asked, as I told you to? Why didn’t you follow instructions and stay in your place?
Again, I understand the fear for Billie that prompted it, but no survivor wants to feel the poison of their abuser spill out of their throat like that on someone they love and it’s shitty that that happened to Billie*.
*And I feel for Billie a lot here, because I’ve been in that Billie position a lot thanks to my ex and how… poorly she handled the abuse she received from her folks and how easy it became to use me as a release valve for all of that. And I really don’t want Ruth to continue making a pattern of what she did here, because Billie so doesn’t deserve this. “Sir” does.
Also, I love all the folks charting how her eyes are back to black after having the spark of life when Billie first defended her. Cause this is such a beautiful subtle visual depiction of something that happens in real life. Or at least something that happens to me a lot.
Which is I have hazel eyes that are really responsive to mood, so when I start to slip into a depressive spiral, my eyes actually literally start going grey in response. And so it’s cool to see that similar eyes reflecting mood thing going on for Ruth though I wish she finds her way out of her depressive spiral and the cage “sir” has placed her in.
Panels 4-6: Yeah, she knows this was a fuck up and is now in the smashing everything and anything around her in the pain and rage of what she was just subjected to and what she just did to Billie.
I really like Reltzik’s comment about the recycling bins being metaphorical of her recycling of “sir”‘s abuse. And how badly she doesn’t want to get stuck in that spiral of passing down his awfulness.
And it’s why I think she’s going to have to blow up at “sir” sometime. Because one of the ways that I’ve seen work best for folks getting stuck in that “passing down” thing is to really have a full go at their abuser and call them out.
It’s dangerous, it’s risky, and at the end of it, your abuser usually makes you feel like a piece of shit and hurts you more for it. But it helps you hold on to who is doing this to you so it’s less easy to dump on those who have nothing to do with it.
Also, let’s be frank, “sir” could do with a good screaming match from the offspring he so maligns.
But more than all that, what she needs most is to be free. Cause we’ve seen in her previous little bit how much better Ruth is when the dark clouds and feelings of being trapped aren’t all around her. How much more functional, how much more responsive to Billie she is, how much healthier their dynamic.
But in the fear and feelings of being trapped, all that gets blasted away and all the toxic dynamics come flooding back. And that’s one of the forgotten tragedies of this kind of abuse, how it damages everything that touches the person being abused. Makes everything harder and spills out secondary trauma on the whole support network. And sometimes that strain can be too much for the support network and they need to detangle entirely.
I don’t think Billie will, but it sucks to see her absorb what she does here. And I hope that Ruth manages an apology instead of just spiraling back down to another suicide attempt as is frighteningly likely right now.
Still, this is a step up from just silently taking “Sir’s” abuse. And the sad part is that I think Billie gets it. She knows just how shitty Ruth’s situation is, and she has enough experience with it, to know where the outburst is coming from.
Turns out you don’t actually need your femurs to live! Just to walk. And I plan on being a programmer, writer, and webcomic maker, so that’s one skillset I’d gladly forfeit for the ability to LITERALLY BREAK DOWN THE BARRIER BETWEEN FICTION AND REALITY. It’s just like in Dr. Strange, except completely different.
Good cop: “You have to understand, Mr Willis, it looks a bit bad, how all your readers suddenly lost their femurs.”
Bad cop: “It looks really bad.”
Good cop: “And how they all got fed to wild dogs.”
Bad cop: “So many wild dogs.”
Good cop: “It just looks a bit… suspicious is all.”
Bad cop: “It looks really bad.”
Are we going to see Ruth go beat up one of the people on her floor? We’ve heard a lot about her bullying and violence but very rarely seen it. It’d be a good time I think.
Ruth’s grandpapy keeps her too intimidated to talk back. As an RA Ruth keeps her charges too intimidated to complain. She pushes everyone away with abuse. Cllint has trained her to keep herself isolated and vulnerable to abuse from him.
Billie is one of the fires to be put out. By being there and mouthing of at him, Billie has become a target. This is a guy who could sweep gross negligence under the carpet and let Ruth keep her job. What can he do to Billie so she’s no longer an unwelcome distraction?
I think Ruth knows that and that’s why she yelled.
I think it comes down to what Billie’s price regarding Ruth would be. She did just say that money changes hands when her father yells at her, presumably to shut her up. If Billie plays her cards right, she might be able to use that against Clint and turn things around.
Granted, it’s a big if, and Ruth just spiked the odds of it happening big time with this outburst, but it could happen and, by gum, I’m holding out hope it will!
Yes, I think this was a huge concern. Ruth wanted to keep Billie out of her grandfather’s attention, and also now Billie has deliberately antagonised him again, which means that the consequences -RUTH- has to deal with could be made even worse now.
Billie just screwed the pooch to an epic degree by what she did earlier – she neither effectively protected Ruth from her abuser in future and both intensified future fire and painted a target on herself.
I agree that *Ruth* certainly believes he’s capable of doing something dreadful to Billie. She may be right, she may not. In Ruth’s life, he is omnipotent. In the larger world, he is clearly still powerful, but there have to be limits to that. The question is where those limits lie.
I think it should be noted my wife states this is something that just happens all the time. You can do the right thing, stand up for someone, and so on but a lot of times the anger just needs to spill out and often it happens to those you love. The best thing to do is be patient and understanding. Also, continue to be there for them.
Billie then handed Howard a fiver for snacks, pointed him in the direction of the nearest television, returned to Ruth’s room, and patiently awaited Ruth’s arrival, ready to listen.
I can’t blame Ruth for not wanting Billie to see her humiliated like that. Her self-esteem is weak enough without having to have people she loves watch her being round into the dirt.
That said, I strongly suspect that she’d prefer to be shouting at Clint and throwing things at him!
Sir: “My granddaughter doesn’t need the mandatory therapy you put her into.”
Doc: “Is that so? Why do you think so?”
Sir: “She has her job to do.”
Doc: “Hmm, yes. And?”
I work as a janitor at a college. So…the recycle bins are next to the garbage cans, and both have displays above them with pictures showing what to put where – all you have to do is match the things that look alike.
I swear everybody forgot how to match pictures immediately after leaving kindergarten. It’s not that everyone is lazy either, people will stand in front of the bins looking helplessly between their trash and the displays.
Frankly…I’ve been in both Ruth & Billie’s shoes, in regards to both being in a (physically AND mentally) abusive childhood homophobic home…and being closeted in university..and attempting to date other (closeted or not) queer folx while dealing with all the aforementioned.
It’s well written and makes me concerned for Willis. I understand that author empathy enough to write characters who share neither your orientation nor your assigned gender is a thing.
But dude. Y’alright over there? *sends good thoughts*
I had a feeling one of two things would happen. Either Ruth would appreciate what Billie did in spite of the potential problems that would spring up as a result of trying to intervene directly. Or she’d… do this.
I’ll be perfectly honest, although I recognise the “I Love you and Will Defend You” impulse that Billie had as being well-intentioned….she was stupid.
No, seriously, Billie was stupid.
She didn’t even do a good job of defending Ruth. She postured and made noise. She might have felt serious about it, but all she did was posture and make noise, and it wasn’t even effective noise, it didn’t hit any of the points which might have made “Sir” stop and think. All it did was make him angrier and more contemptuous of Ruth and her friend.
And Ruth is the one who has had to deal with “Sir” and knows what he is likely to do. She is also the one who has to deal with the consequences now. She needed Billie to listen to her, desperately needed this, as something to keep herself and Billie that tiny bit safer. ~~And, it would have meant she had some tiny fraction of control over the situation, which Billie has just robbed her of.~~
Billie was trying to be noble, but sometimes the noblest, and most helpful, thing that you can do….is actually listen and do what the other person asks you to.
OTOH, there’s probably nothing some random kid could do or say that would make Clint stop and think.
And Billie did disrupt the abusive rant he was going off on, so that’s a plus.
Sometimes having someone stand up for you and try is more important than anything else.
And Billie? Head cheerleader. Problem solver. Alpha bongo. Not a chance in hell she was going to meekly follow orders and go back upstairs. Or let someone tear into her Ruth.
This. Clint isn’t going to suddenly become reasonable and see the error of his ways. What Ruth needs most is to see that he isn’t all-powerful and somebody has her back. But she’s still afraid for Billie and has a ton of pent-up anger from the abuse she has just taken.
Regardless of whether or not it was a smart idea (remember the title of this comic), it was TOTALLY within character for Billie to defy orders and fight for Ruth. Robbing Ruth of her agency? Possibly. But Ruth’s ordering Billie to leave robbed BILLIE of HER agency.
I was just watching some dumb serial with my SO a few nights ago, and I asked them, “There’s a trope in these stories, where two people are risking their lives together, and one (usu a man) tricks the other (usu a woman) into staying behind, so as to protect them. But, doing so denies the other agency, doesn’t it? Would you rather I let you risk your life, or protect you, and deny you your agency?” Without hesitation, they said to let them risk their life. “That trope makes for good drama, but it SUCKS in real life.”
Agree with your take on the trope — BUT. If the issue is “you can stay and help defend yourself”, cool. If the issue is “stay and help defend me but actually put me in more danger and make things worse”, then however heroic the impulse, maybe not.
Why is anyone mad at Billie right now? She isn’t made of stone. It is not fair to expect her to see her SO being abused and just let it happen. And the idea of not intervening because it might make things worse just normalizes the abuse.
Maybe in some sense it wasn’t the best strategic move. But that isn’t the whole picture.
I read Billie’s eyes in panel 4 as rolling in a “whatever, you’re not in the place to deal yet” way. I am no doubt projecting here, but I get the sense that Billie’s seen this type of displaced anger before and she left so the storm can blow over. Or maybe I’m just hoping strongly that she didn’t take that outburst personally.
Usually abuse begins when the abusee is small, and the abuser, an adult, has a size and strength advantage (bullies never pick on the strong). The abusee is conditioned to fear aggressing against the abuser, since it’s usually not effective, and provokes a nastier response from the adult. By the time the abusee is an adult, the behavior is so ingrained, it’s hard to resist.
Ruth is mad at herself, a little at Billie, but mostly herself. She feels she’s failed to protect Billie from Clint, and now she’s afraid of what her failure will cause.
I feel like I could relate with Billie here. My parents were emotionally abusive and I ran away from home a few times. Once or twice it was just to stay somewhere else for a few days, maybe a few States over where they couldn’t come after me. When I turned 18 I left for good. My parents don’t financially support me and don’t wield anything over me and my relationship with them has become so much better.
So when my friends have parents who are fucking awful abusive, homophobic, transphobic people, my immediate reaction is to get angry and tell my friends to tell their parents to eat shit. But I know that’s not reasonable, that comes at a cost. When I left my parents I went through a lot of hardship before my quality of life stabilized. My friends have parents who help them pay for cars, or for school. I never had that in the first place because my family is poor.
But if I saw a parent talking to my friend like that in front of me I think I’d go off on them, for better or for worse. I just have such a resentment for abuse of authority, over your own child no less.
I have DID, depression (possibly bipolar), ocd, C-PTSD, generalized anxiety, phobias, am in recovery for anorexia, and used to self harm as well, which all stems from severe abuse for most of my life. I’ve been the Billie and the Ruth, though I’ve worked hard to not be either, especially the Ruth, being autistic complicates things since it makes handling even harder. My daughter is also autistic and we’ve had to work hard not to end up in a Billie and Ruth situation, we finally came to a good solution when I get angry I take space and deep breaths and when my daughter gets angry, I remind her of her choices and give her a stress ball. There was a time when my daughter was quite literally physically abusing me and I was left fighting my C-PTSD and not responding well as i tried to protect myself. This was hard because it started getting bad when she was 3 and reached its peak when she was 4. My preschooler was beating me black and blue everyday and my only recourse was to either fight back, which I didn’t want to do but sometimes when I was trapped I had to use force to get away (though I was as gentle as possible), or to hide, I generally chose to hide. I was suicidal at this point and didn’t know what to do. Thankfully, I stumbled on a site that gave me techniques to try with her that lead to things making a complete 180. Now she hasn’t gotten physical with me in 6 months and is handling anger much better. Basically, my personal experience makes me confident that Ruth and Billie can learn a better pattern.
They both did what they thought was best possible for the other person. They both know that “best possible” wasn’t very good. When calm they’ll both know that the other one did what they thought was best from a set of poor possibilities. And they’ll both know that they shouldn’t be angry at each other. And it won’t help.
I’ve been finding myself trying to map this whole horrid scenario onto John Darnielle songs (because that’s what I do) as this has been going on. For the office scene, there’s some good songs off of Sunset Tree. But for this scene, the line “my heart’s an autoclave” fits to a heartbreaking extent. (Live version here.)
I really hope the overall story here is going to be “things are going to be rocky, but in the end, even two depressed sexual minorities from abusive families can life happy fulfilling lives” and not “no, sorry, Ruth is just too fucked up to have that kind of happiness”. I see a lot of myself in Ruth, and I want things to turn out well for her and her non-normative relationship.
Sticking around and interrupting Sir’s abuse? Probably a good move on Billie’s part.
Immediately beginning to make light of the situation? Like, sure, Ruth shouldn’t have lashed out, but even if she was perfectly level-headed at the moment, I still couldn’t blame her for being incredibly angry.
You don’t tell someone you care about them by saying “You’re not the boss of me now!” when they’re clearly very hurt.
No neither as I don’t think shes made amends for how she treated the wing however, depending on what happens next and if theres an act of contrition (or just a decent apology), I may well start to have some (limited) sympathy for her
I don’t know what it was about this one, but this was a difficult comic for me to get through. I think it’s because I’ve been the Billie in this strip so often before it brought out a lot of those emotions. I’m just sitting here sobbing and having a hard time stopping right now.
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Well, Ruth handled that…well…
well….. she handled it….
points for nothing in the building needing to be fixed
Are you sure? I can think of a few things. Just not, you know, physically. XD
It was because she listened to the words coming out of her mouth. That’s almost always a tactical mistake.
sounding like your abusers is never something you want to experience
trust me
Yet
Well, Faz needs to be fixed, but I guess he’s not in the building right now.
I’d nominate Mike to be neutered as well.
Handled? Or “footled”?
Go to your room.
In the sense that “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well”, maybe.
Character lashes out by emulating the parent figure that messed them up, now where have I seen that before? Oh, that’s right, everywhere… 🙁
Ruth is a rank amateur. Amber could give her pointers.
Wait, when did she say that? I can’t find where she told Billie to leave…
here. there was some intense staring going on and everything
Right before going in Chloe’s office.
Oh, that’s why. I only looked in strips where Clint was tagged. Kind of dense of me, in hindsight. Thanks for the help!
Also apparently my avatar is Amber when I’m on my phone, and Jocelyn when I’m on my laptop.
Damnit Ruth….
Game of Thrones!
GAME OF THRONES!!
Oh nooooooooo.
‘,:.I
:Oc
D:
Ruth :c Billie :c None of this is any good at all :ccccccc
All that frustration has got to go somewhere. Sorry, Billie.
Ehh. While Ruth is in a bad bad BAD situation, that doesn’t make taking it out on Billie okay…
Which she realized immediately. Literally. Next panel. Come on.
Yes, she did. Except there’s an established pattern here that needs to STOP. Just realizing it isn’t enough.
Realizing it + therapy + practice practice practice, to learn another pattern of behaviour.
Yes, agreed. And when that starts, I’ll be much happier with the situation.
It’s started, they’re both in therapy!
It’ll probably take a really long time for Billie to see any changes, though, let alone those of us stuck out here in realtime.
Where did we learn Billie was in therapy?
She mentioned it in the hospital. It’s weekly, and I think it hasn’t started yet.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/stock/
Thanks.
Of course. And you know what’s awesome? Having been in Ruth’s shoes, I know that a perfectly good way to stop is to kill yourself.
ah yes, guillotine – the best cure for headaches
Except Billie wasn’t making it any better
Which means we talk it out like adults instead of screaming in each other’s faces.
Which means maybe Billie should have listened to Ruth in the first place.
But verbal abuse is not an appropriate response so let’s not excuse it.
It’s not really up to us to forgive or excuse, but the trouser-leg of the universe where Billie does what Ruth wants has Ruth shredded to pieces by her grandfather, so I’d say no, Billie did the right thing not listening to Ruth.
She snapped, dude. It happens. It’s not the same as a protracted campaign of emotional abuse.
Ruth already has established a protracted campaign of emotional abuse. It’s why their relationship was awful.
getting angry and shouting is not the same thing as verbal abuse. Sometimes you get a little pissed off and shout at someone who probably doesn’t deserve it. We’ve all done it at some point
Maybe we’ve all done it. It doesn’t stop it being abuse.
Even if you can understand where Ruth comes from, the behavior is abusive and needs to be addressed.
…yeah but this shouting in particular is definitely verbal abuse.
All Ruth needs to do is apologize. “Sorry I snapped, can I make it up to you?” Something abusers never do is own up to their shit, admit they are wrong and try to fix it. It’s as simple as that.
I do not see any way in which Billie actually made it worse. Sure, Billie is now a target, but PuddingHead already mentioned her, so she was going to be a target anyways.
Other than that, Billie being around is a net positive. And, well, Ruth shouldn’t try to be that controlling, anyways.
Haha yes I like that name
There are few things more embarrassing than someone else being witness to your abuse. You know in your gut that what’s happening isn’t supposed to, and even if you know perfectly well who’s at fault here, there’s a small part of it that still feels like it reflects on you, makes you weak, humiliates you.
Billie hoped humor would defuse the situation, but it didn’t work out )=
Okay here’s the thing. You are assuming that Ruth has the resources or the tools to do something other than what she did here. She doesn’t.
She’s still not all that far away from suicidal territory, she’s being forced into a job that was making her miserable, she’s being separated from Billie who was the only person that could reach her on any level, the group of people that are supposed to respect her and follow her rules know that she was just released from the hospital for a mental health crisis, she was just the victim of some really serious verbal abuse TWO SECONDS AGO, and it’s likely she’s scared that because of Billie’s interference, her grandfather is going to make life more miserable for Billie too.
There is a reason that Ruth coped with her stress by drinking so much it almost killed her and wanting to die. Repeated trauma, a life of chronic abuse, and high levels of stress tend to do that to a person. She isn’t talking it out with Billie cause she doesn’t know how.
Hey c’mon, she was trying.
Billie totally helped: she actually got Sir to stop yelling at Ruth’s face and go away for the moment! (Even though Billie didn’t know what to do, or if it would work, or if she’d have to fight him, or what.) Billie was a friggin badass, and got Ruth the space to breathe, and Ruth knows it, even though her first reaction was to scream into that space. You know?
I am willing to put a (small) sum of money on Billies intervention making Clint’s ultimate reaction worse than it otherwise would’ve been.
Unfortunately there’s no control group for this study, we can’t see how both realities would have played out.
A person can’t do the best thing, they can simply do a thing.
While true, Clint’s the kind of asshole, I think, that’s going to repay being thwarted — in any way, by anyone — with interest.
Our only hope is that Billie can use her own father’s abusive habits (neglect interspersed with payment for misdeeds and sweeping things under rugs) to turn him against Clint. If Billie threatens a big enough stink, Mr. Billingsworth might decide to sweep Clint under the rug, rather than Ruth.
Apparently Daddy is very emotionally stunted and negligent, and apparently is trying to show her love via wealth.
I wonder if ‘Daddy, this guy is mean to me and my girlfriend, can you sue him off the map for harassment?’ would qualify for ‘love via wealth’.
I doubt Billie would ever do it, but I’m picturing it in my head anyways because it makes me happy.
A story I’m reading as it’s posted on another site posits a device which does just that – allowing the user to view all outcomes of a choice, and pick the “best” one. Save-scumming reality.
What’s the catch? Well, much like Two Face and his scarred coin, the user eventually becomes completely dependent on the device to make any decision, no matter how minor. In the story, this happened to the inventor of the device, and the “solution” that they hit upon was to make sure they were not born the sort of person who would use it … or, in fact, born at all.
Not okay exactly; she’s lashing out, it’s a natural, expected response to trauma. It may take Ruth a lot of practice and discipline to learn to do something else instead.
Her behaviour still totally sucks and impacts Billie, though — I can’t tell whether Billie took it personally, but it’s clear that Ruth is aware that she effed up and oughtn’t yell in Billie’s face like that. Hopefully Ruth will try to clean it up later. It’s a pain.
While I definitely feel for Ruth, that doesn’t make it okay. If it were a one-off thing, sure it’d be excusable, but with the pattern these two have going, it’s waaaay more concerning.
I agree, it’s a really harmful pattern. I think Ruth knows it is, too. However, I don’t think that Ruth can simply stop on her own volition, because if she could, she already would’ve, from the other times she’s realized it’s really bad to lash out at Billie.
If I was her therapist, I might suggest picking another reaction, and practicing the hell out of it, until she could choose it even under stress.
Makes sense. Let’s hope for progress in that direction soon.
This is actually much better than most of what Ruth has said or done before, though. At least, when it comes to being angry and not handling it well. I mean, the stuff she said before was outright assault.
What I’m saying is, she’s at least moving in the right direction.
And, honestly, it’s not that much worse than some of what Billy said when she was in full on depressed mode while Ruth was gone.
Yeah, she done fucked up. I understand why she fucked up and how those situations run you ragged to your last nerve. But it’s a fuck up nonetheless.
Only thing you can do is take a few deep breaths, wait for things to calm down, and try to mend rifts as best you can.
Yup. I’ve been in the Billie position a lot with stuff like this and try really hard to be in the Ruth position as little as possible. Unfortunately, I usually managed that with externalizing the pain as self-injury instead which… wasn’t great.
I’m so sorry to hear that, but it amazes me all the more that you were strong enough to stop.
Eh, I have DID, so I still did the whole Ruth thing, just to myself. I’ve always been really good at being super abusive to myself.
*offers yet another Internet hug*
*accepts all hugs*
I can relate, I have DID and used to self harm as well. I’ve been the Billie and the Ruth, though I’ve worked hard to not be either, especially the Ruth, being autistic complicates things. My daughter is also autistic and we’ve had to work hard not to end up in a Billie and Ruth situation, we finally came to a good solution when I get angry I take space and deep breaths and when my daughter gets angry, I remind her of her choices and give her a stress ball. There was a time when my daughter was quite literally physically abusing me and I was left fighting my C-PTSD and not responding well as i tried to protect myself. This was hard because it started getting bad when she was 3 and reached its peak when she was 4. My preschooler was beating me black and blue everyday and my only recourse was to either fight back, which I didn’t want to do but sometimes when I was trapped I had to use force to get away, or to hide, I generally chose to hide. I was suicidal at this point and didn’t know what to do. Thankfully, I stumbled on a site that gave me techniques to try with her that lead to things making a complete 180. Now she hasn’t gotten physical with me in 6 months and is handling anger much better. Basically, my personal experience makes me confident that Ruth and Billie can learn a better pattern.
I’m so sorry, Cerberus. I truly am. *internet hug from someone you don’t know that hopefully isn’t creepy*
*Internet hugs* I know I had (and most likely still have) a lot of repressed anger. In 27 years, I have only played the part of Ruth in this situation once. It was about six years ago actually, and it was me screaming at my now deceased biological father “If you ever speak to my mother like that again I will kill you myself!!!” while holding him up with both hands around his neck…I didn’t kill him, he took care of that fourteen months afterwards, but by God I wanted to just squeeze until his trachea broke. I was unleashing 12 years of built up repressed anger at the man responsible for most of it and for emotionally and economically abusing and controlling my mother, myself, and my brothers and I nearly broke but afterwards I was frightened of myself and to be honest have been afraid of myself ever since. I generally limit as much contact with people outside of work as possible aside from my friends, because I never, ever want to snap like that again. So I do a lot of yoga, some meditation, and staying inside a storage unit for an hour every Saturday afternoon so that I can scream my head off while beating a punching bag. It’s not a healthy solution, but it keeps me in control, and other people safe so it will do for now. Especially because I’m already taking medications for social anxiety, depression, asbergers’, and an attention disorder, I don’t want to mix anything else in there.
Ok. I just realized that was a bit personal and I want to apologize for that. That’s something I haven’t even told my psychiatrist yet and I definitely did not need to heap it out on everyone here. I’m very very sorry. I’m just, going to go now. Might not show up in the comments for the next couple of days. Sorry.
*supportive hug* Thank you for sharing that. And I think you have nothing to be scared of. You’re not going to become him. Not now. Not ever.
@Cerberus thanks. The thing is, I’m not afraid of becoming my…I’m a little uncomfortable using the word “father” to describe him, because he never acted like one once we moved from Michigan to California when I was 9. I’m afraid I’m going to be worse. Because he could be emotionally abusive, financially controlling, and browbeating with his weird “be better than me” mentality, but he was never physically abusive. And I, well when I do get angry (again, inside storage unit) I get very physically violent. And, that outburst, it wasn’t the first (or the last) time that I’ve actively thought about and or fantasized about killing someone. And that’s, that’s really scary for me. Because, what if I am some sort of monster who takes pleasure in harming others? What if I am predisposed to violence? Am I threat to the safety of others? If so, should I get rid of the threat to other people preemptively? All these questions are in my head, and I don’t have any concrete answers. And the possibilities scare me. I’m going to be a full time teacher starting next school year. What if there’s something wrong in my head and I snap and hurt one of my students? Sorry about unloading all this, it’s just, nice to finely get it out and tell someone about it. And while I do trust my psychiatrist, I don’t want anymore medications. I’m on four already, and I don’t want to either have a fifth one that messes around with everything else or become addicted to any of my medications. So, uh thanks for listening. I honestly think you’re one of the best people I’ve ever communicated. The shear amount of strength you have to have gone through all that trauma, and to still be such a good person who’s a rock for others (your students, your fiancée, some of us commenters) it’s amazing. Ah, jeez now I’m just rambling. Just, thanks again. *hugs*
@Rukduk
Having thoughts like that sounds scary, but they do not make you a bad person. Knowing your demons and doing your best to combat them – Which it sounds like you are –
(i do not know if staying away from others is productive or neccessary, but the fact that you are concerned enough about others to want to do right by them is in and of itself a sign of you being a good person)
I hope you find a path through the anger that allows you some peace.
I know I do not know you, but I have come to really value your perspective in the comment section, so I wanted to say something. I hope this gesture of support was appropriate, and I also want to offer internet hugs.
Think of him as the “sperm donor” rather than your father, because it sounds like he had no concept of how to be one. It sounds like your whole family is better off without him. My only question is, was he abused himself as a kid? Most abusive parents were abused themselves (sorry, can’t remember citation for this), and his abuse took its toll on you, but you’re resisting the temptation to be like him. Were your grandparents okay with the way he acted or were they unaware of what a flaming asshole they’d raised? Or maybe Father Dearest was just a sociopath.
Regardless, don’t worry about ventilating here. Sometimes it’s easier to confess something to non-judgmental strangers than a professional sitting in the same room. And the main things are: 1) you’re seeking help; and 2) the bastard can never harm you again.
Good luck with the rest of your life.!
Rukduk-
Again, I don’t think you’ll become physically violent. One of my students struggles with homicidal ideation. Just like suicidal ideation, it is a matter of intrusive thoughts and does not mean you are a present danger to others on its own.
Talking to a therapist about the homicidal ideation helps my student a lot. It could for you as well.
@ LWS oh his father was an abusive drunken piece of shit from what I know. His mother however was a good parent. And all his live he didn’t want to be his father and once the California job offer didn’t go through, he did end up becoming like my grandpa minus the physical beatings and heavy drinking. When how my parents finally split, because he cheated on her emotionally, grandma and both of his still living brothers sided with us over him when they found out how he’d turned out. I think it was a combination of stress, his own trauma, and a gambling addiction that made him become abusive. Still didn’t stop me from being relieved when he ODed on a painkiller prescription and died. Then felt guilty because everyone else was crying while I felt happy. Then eventually got over the guilt.
@Rukduk, don’t worry about oversharing. A lot of sharing seems to happen in these comment sections, and we help each other. A comic strip is an unexpected place to find a supportive community, but here we are.
And it does, in fact, sound like you’re doing lots of healthy things to manage your anger. Even the storage unit, which you hopefully won’t need forever.
medication for aspergers? o.0 I was not aware such a thing existed (I even asked r/aspergers about it one time, iirc). I’m half hopeful, half skeptical… if you don’t mind more sharing, what symptoms is it supposedly for?
also, I second all the nice things other people said 🙂 and, maybe you could talk to a therapist/counsellor/etc about the anger, someone who doesn’t prescribe medication? or read some books on anger – the more I learn about mine, the less scary it is, and recently it seems to be transforming into something that’s… actually positive and not destructive. which I did not expect at all. 🙂
I believe the most common medications for Aspergers were antidepressants for anxiety and antipsychotics for more severe behavioural issues.
What BBC said. There’s one thing I take for the anxiety, and one for the depression. They’re supposed to work together or something like that. Then there’s the aderal for my attention disorder. It’s better than when I was taking sertraline, because my body built up a tolerance to that, to the point that the dosage was having to be increased ever four months. Which had the side effect of making me feel even more angry and aggressive before I got of off that. The fourth one is a prescription for sleeping pills for insomnia, which I have to combine with a CPAP machine because of sleep apnea. I’m generally, a mess mentally. Physically I’m in great condition though, so I got that going for me.
I’ve never ever had deep breaths help me. You can wait for it to calm down, but the best way I find to do that is to just go something else, ideally something that makes you happy.
You think Ruth’s upset? She looks upset.
Nah, she just really hates recycling.
I don’t blame her. I recently heard it’s a scam, along with global warming.
Global warming is a scam?
*grabs hairdryer*
NOT SAFE YET, ICE CAPS.
:cccccccccccc
Poor Ruth. Poor Billie.
Poor? Both of them actually seem to come from rather financially successful homes?
poor
pɔː,pʊə/
adjective
3. (of a person) deserving of pity or sympathy.
Yes, you called it. congrats.
And lo, we see the unintended cycle of abuse. Not that I blame Ruth persay, sometimes people are in shitty situations and have tons of stress. Good ole Sir has pretty much ‘shown’ that blowing up and browbeating people is how you react when upset. When people, especially a young woman who mourns her dead parents and is apparently always compared to one of those parents in a negative light, is exposed to so much negative sometimes that’s all they know. This thing with Sir definitely explains a lot of Ruth’s behavior. Note that I said explains, not excuses. Billie was only trying to help and defend her here. Somebody in Ruth’s situation needs positive influences in their life, along with counseling. And getting far away from that old bastard so she can heal.
Also I almost wish puddinghead could see this because I’ll definitely give Ruth this: she KNOWS now that she shouldn’t have the authority of an RA. She knows she shouldn’t be one, that people would be better off with someone else. That she has done wrong, intimidated her charges through fear like Sir does to her. And…she’s still being forced into that job. And puddinghead won’t consider Ruth’s opinion on the matter. That’s super fucked up.
Rapuddzel doesn’t really see things.
(Okay, that nickname wasn’t as good as I thought it would be.)
That nickname does lend itself well to a song for her to ing if she finally does see things for what they are. “And at least I see the light! And it’s like the fog has lifted…”.
Did Ruth ever want to be an RA in the first place? I wonder if Sir has been this controlling since he was granted custody, if so maybe it was his idea after seeing the bills for her freshman year.
Yeah, the stress of surviving an abusive encounter can set your nerves on edge and make it easier to blow up on non-involved folks or folks who try to support*. Doesn’t make it right and when done frequently can just end up being the passing down of abuse, but it’s a thing that can happen when the fear and pain is running that hot.
Though I’m a little worried, because Ruth seems to be making a habit out of “blow up, try to push Billie away, beat herself up” every time she feels trapped in an abusive dynamic with an external person (“Sir” and Mary) and that’s not a habit she’s going to need to break for her own recovery.
*My ex would frequently blow up when they came back from dealing with her abusive family. Unfortunately for me, that escalated to blaming me for fictional things and gaslighting to justify the blowing up and the need to dump that negativity and pain somewhere.
*hugs* I am so sorry that you have been in that situation. I know when it comes to things like this…there’s a thin line between being understanding, such as knowing that your ex has an abusive family and Ruth’s crappy grandfather, and needing to separate because that understanding goes both ways and sometimes you can only take so much of being an angry dump load.
Oh yeah. This. There’s really only so much being someone’s dumping ground you can put yourself through and remain relatively functional.
What is holding you together Cerberus? The more and more I read what you’ve written about the sort of nightmares you’ve had to live through, I’m astonished that someone is capable of not only surviving it, but keeping it all seared in razor sharp detail on every inch of their soul so they never forget it, when by rights it should have been washed away. How do you do it?
Lots of therapy, anti-depressants, and using a webcomic as therapy?
I dunno, I never feel as put together and functional as others see me as. Like, I feel like a ball of damage, bailing wire, and duct tape. So to have folks like you think I’m really strong and impressive is a bit foreign feeling at times.
Even if you don’t feel that way or have a hard time believing it, that”s how I feel. You inspire me to be a better person at the best of times, and even at the worst give me some perspective on my troubles, making me realize that no matter how bad I think I got it, you and so many others have had it much, mucheck worse and havery still come out on top.
You may be human as the rest of us, but don’t for one second belive that that doesn’t make you a superhero.
PS, I really should proofread before posting my comments… >~<
If you take an super-expensive, brand new lambourgini and an old family sedan held together mostly by duct tape and wishful thinking, and try to drive each through an active war zone, exactly one of them has a reasonable chance of getting to the other side.
There’s a lot to be said for the ability to keep going running when a lot of important bits have been blown off or are currently rattling around in the trunk.
See, I’m pretty sure the big reason at least some of us think you’re strong and impressive is that we can’t even imagine having been in your shoes and the fact that you are even remotely functional and are able to stand up for other people like the kid at your school even so is a lot more than a lot of us feel we could do.
I mean, the comparatively minor issues I have in my life sometimes feel like all I am capable of dealing with, so I’m almost certain that if I had had to live through your life I wouldn’t even be functional enough to write comments about a web comic, let alone live a life.
we all underestimate our own strength. When I was working as an EMT assistant, I was terrified of having to eventually deal with the dead and dying rather than just the injured or old. I’ve been getting screaming panic attacks just from thinking about the concept of death since the age of 4. But when I actually had to be in that situation, I don’t think I’ve ever been that calm and focused before in my life.
My point is, to quote Superman and Grant Morrison: You are so much stronger than you think you are. and so are we all.
*High fives* for the wire and duct tape, for all the things that work.
+1
duct tape can fix anything
@Cerberus, I definitely identify with that. Have you ever read Marbles, by Ellen Forney? It’s a graphic novel about the author’s struggle with bipolar. I like it in large part because it shows what wellness looks like in the context of a chronic mental illness, and the balancing act required to maintain it. That’s a story I’ve hardly seen anywhere else.
Anyways, there’s a page where she talks about how she always wanted to meet a high-functioning bipolar who would sit down with her and tell her everything would be ok, and her gradual realization that she *was* a high-functioning bipolar. I may have cried when I read that page. It always looks messier from the inside. I am very professionally and personally successful, but I’m also frequently white-knuckling my way through. People never see that bit.
But you know what? Success and struggle don’t negate each other. Both can be true.
aww, it’s only in dead-tree format. :/ but it actually ships to my country, at least! (and this isn’t a good time for an archive-binge anyways)
I like Introspective Comics, which I think has branched off into something else that I forgot to get the new rss feed for…
oh, and SFP has been amazing lately, but that’s more relevant for the anger thread above…
I will very much need to check that out and yeah, it always looks messier from the inside. That rings really true to me.
Holds true for the neurotypical types too.
We’re all faking it. 🙂
Imposter syndrome is weird like that. And if you don’t think you’re successful enough to suffer from imposter syndrome, that’s the imposter syndrome talking.
Yep, she got mad.
…. so is that Panel 4-5 facepalm “I’m so furious at Billie” or is it “OMG I sound like Sir”?
…. I just realized it’s probably the latter, because Panel 6 shows how Ruth suddenly hates recycling stuff.
… it MIGHT be coincidence, but I’m reading it as symbolism.
Re: “it MIGHT be coincidence, but I’m reading it as symbolism.”
Why not both? Inadvertent symbolism, awayyyyyy~!
Considering that Ruth facepalms right after yelling at Billie, I think she still has a lot of anger against her, but it appears to quickly evaporate when Billie runs off and Ruth realizes what she’s done and how much she acted like Sir. If the symbolism is the case (and your explanation does make a lot of sense), I suppose it can be made into an extended metaphor of Ruth working hard to not recycling old behavior and going straight to replacing her negative influences with loving people like Billie. I hope that she succeeds in her endavours!
Not sure Billie ran off. It would be kind of unBillie.
I think that’s a fair reading. She’s angry at sir, angry at herself, angry for lashing out. And angry at recycling (WHY MUST THOSE CANS BE SO BLUE?!?!?).
But yeah, seriously, I think the metaphor might be somewhat intentional.
THEY SHOULD BE GREEN! GREEEEEEN! RUTH SMASH!!!
*desperately tries to make jokes*
You shouldn’t be abusing things for being blue, Ruth. Did you think maybe they don’t WANT to be blue? Maybe they’re trying to be green, but force themselves to stop being blue?
Just remember, it’s not easy being green.
Yeah, but what’s the use of feeling blue?
Inside and outside?
One, two, three, four,
I declare a reference war.
Five, six, seven, eight,
try to keep the stories straight.
(Nine, ten, eleven, twelve,
but not heterosexual.)
It can be two things.
Little of column A, little of column B.
It’s ok, Billie, she loves you really. She’s just gonna need to go and punch and kick some things now. Give it time.
Not that yelling at her is ok or anything. I just mean I understand where it’s coming from.
Anybody who comes down that elevator is getting a garbage can in the face (except if it’s amber/amazi-girl, given her reflexes). And Billie was just trying to help, awkward as it made things (though probably enough to stop Clint). :-:
points for billie trying to de-escalate the situation.
Again.
I BOTH BOO AND APPLAUD YOUR PUNS
This…actually went better than I thought. I expected this to end in a break up. I mean this isn’t GREAT….and they could still break up…but idk…I could also see them talking to each other once Ruth cools off.
Her eyes turned black again.
What did those recycling bins ever do to you, Ruth?
They know what they did.
*plays Bach’s Tocatta & Fugue on the hacked Muzak*
Oh, Ruth, no. </3
And yeah, her eyes are back to black. I'm very concerned now.
Especially since the last time she did this “blow up at Billie and push her away” thing in response to dealing with abuse, she basically became catatonic on her bed for two days straight.
Did the green eyes go away again? Were they an art error?
I’m sure Willis is very deliberate with Ruth’s eyes.
Her eye color is indicative of her emotional state, similar to how you can tell whether Amazi-girl or Amber is running the show by whether or not her face has blushes (blush = Amber, no blush = AG. in case you were unaware)
Seems to me recycle box one and two deserve tags as well. After all they’ll probably be in the next strip.
ah yes the cycle of abuse
Yes, it keeps getting passed along… the next person to use those recycle bins had better watch out.
Someone is getting SUCH a canning!
Aaaand cue Ruth going on a self-loathing spiral for allowing her anger to be misdirected towards someone who was trying to help rather than the actual source of it. Hopefully she can talk that over with the psychiatrist I should damn well hope she’ll be ordered to see in the wake of all that’s happened.
She needs a patented Joyce Brown Warm Sweater Vest hug and she needs it yesterday.
Thankfully, I’m pretty sure she’s still in that group therapy program assuming “sir” isn’t doing something to muck that up right now.
He better not! Else I will write a VERY strongly worded message to Mr. Willis! >:(
That’s a real risk, isn’t it?
*”Being in therapy is a sign of being weak AND NO GRANDDAUGHTER OF MINE is allowed to be perceived as being weak. Also, I will now strangulate a kitten while insulting baby ducks.”
Ah good ole self-loathing the most completely unhelpful reaction to having hurt someone.
Oh no she’s a Wereclint.
Ruth is back to black-eyes now, I see.
This latest arc has been pretty tiresome to read. I love it, but half a week of tense buildup in Chloe’s office followed a tense buildup to Ruth exploding because she’s afraid and hurt is really exhausting.
It’s been emotionally rough, yeah. :c
Same. Dumbing of Age has been so stressful lately… not that it’s badly-done, just. Ugh.
Sometimes I go away for a couple days or even weeks so that I can return and read it all at once; it’s way less harrowing that way.
Either way, I think we could do with a palette cleanser: surely somebody, somewhere, is being delightful.
Dina. We need some Dina right now. Preferably with a side of Becky.
Carla might work too.
Sir trying to mess with Carla and her just laughing in his face.
Ruth is trying to kick that recycling bin back into panel 3 to hit herself in the face before she yells at Billie.
Dang, I shoulda read all the comments first.
Yeah, don’t you just wish you could go back in time and kick a bin at you before you could write that comment?
I wonder where Ruth learned to yell at people.
Ruth smash!
ruth’s legs: so strong they can kick something atop the fourth wall
Oh, good, somebody else saw it that way.
yeah, I didn’t think Billie’s flippant attitude would go over well, she’s treating this as a joke…
I don’t think Billie’s attitude has anything to do with it – Ruth either didn’t want her grandfather to see Billie because he’d use it against her, or she didn’t want Billie to see how she’s treated by her grandfather. Possibly both.
Or she doesn’t want her grandfather trying to destroy Billie.
It’s not Billie’s fault, it’s Clint’s.
Billie was just there, so she gets to take a little piece of the lashing that Ruth wants to direct at Sir.
Ruth probably didn’t want Billie there so that
– Billie wouldn’t become Clint’s target
– Billie wouldn’t see Ruth at her most vulnerable and abused
– Possible: so that Ruth could take the abuse like she’s accustomed to, without an added stressful variable.
– Possible: Ruth might have even known that she’d probably lash out afterwards, although that would be impressive insight on her part, and she would’ve preferred to lash out at inanimate objects, not her girlfriend. But mostly the first two.
All of the above.
If he always does it, it’s not impressive insight, it’s basic awareness of reality
Ruth might get along with Amber at this rate…
Oh nooo! Grampa Jerkass made Ruth so upset that she’s forgotten how smooching works! It’s much less shouty and usually a lot more gentle!
:C
With these two it might not be a lot more gentle, but still! Ruth, you forgot, you’re doing it wrong!
Called it.
Called it so very hard.
For me, this was entirely expected, so my reaction was very much a…I don’t know, a sigh of ‘well, there went the outburst of pent-up stress and anger.’ I’m not disappointed in her, but it’s sad to see her lash out against Billie like this. Background-wise, I have a different history of abuse than Ruth, but this sort of anger is very familiar to me: both lashing out inappropriately at people who didn’t deserve that much of my anger, and the physically aggressive rage. I would go to my room or the basement and punch pillows, rip apart paper, or I would punch a wall. And then the anger would drain so quickly it would leave me with shaking hands and a sick feeling in my stomach. I get how she’s feeling in these strips, so it hits pretty close to home.
It’s horrible that Ruth is being placed back in this RA position, a position which will do no one any good at all, and she knows it. I don’t think she’s likely to go back to her physical abuse- because she was making efforts around the end to be a better RA, but the stress and responsibility is not something she needs right now. And to make matters worse, Mary is still there, and not being transferred. After feeling like she might escape this one awful thing, she gets shoved back into the same cage.
I guess my hopes are that she sticks with her therapy, maybe sees a counselor. I hope she can take those steps forward soon and work on her anger and coping skills, I hope she doesn’t end up isolating herself further, because this is so awful and painful to watch.
And Billie, who has been downright selfless lately and I wouldn’t ask for more of her really, I nevertheless hope she doesn’t entirely give up on Ruth.
Hug her. Hug her! Hug her and call her squishy!
So… was panel 6 Ruth aiming to hit panel 5 Ruth with that bin, or have I officially read too many meta comics?
Sounds about right. She wants to hit past self with a bin for being mean to Billie.
I also like that in Panel 5, it’s not just that Billie disappears. Everything around Ruth disappears as she is overwhelmed by her internal experience.
Comic Reactions:
Oh, Ruth, you done fucked up… :c
Panel 1: Billie recounting her dad’s dismissive ignoring of her fills me with so many feels, because it’s so painful to not even be valued enough as a human being as to be addressed directly and for her to go through that as much as she has with her own dad only to re-experience it here is filling me with all the sad feels.
Panel 2: Oh Billie, trying so hard to be cute and flirty. In a perfect universe, this should be a happy moment. You chased off the abuser hurting your gf. It’s romantic as fuck. But, Ruth is not in a mode where she can even access that part of her brain right now. She’s in full panic death spiral and you just put yourself in the exact danger she tried to martyr herself to protect you from. :c
Back to Panel 1: And I understand Ruth tripping to that fear, that she told Billie to go upstairs. Her grandfather is dangerous and doesn’t play nearly close to fair and is fond of exploiting power dynamics in order to trap and punish people.
Ruth really really wanted to sacrifice herself to save Billie (which sadly likely had a good portion to do with a form of self-injury and depression-spiraling). She stayed mum on Billie to her grandpa, told her to go upstairs so she wouldn’t be anywhere in the vicinity. She wanted Billie to avoid the awful that was “sir” and now he knows who she is, what she looks like, and where she lives.
Which… yeah, Billie was kinda already fucked on that account thanks to Ms. Shithead, so I’m glad she intervened even if Ruth’s panic doesn’t think so yet.
And there’s probably also an element of not wanting to be seen at her worst. No one wants to be seen as they are in the middle of receiving abuse. The way they freeze up, disassociate, thrash and scream and try to run away. It’s… embarrassing thanks to the way society judges people for receiving abuse. Often over-scrutinizing their actions for signs of fault.
Certainly it added another element to my rape that everyone could see how I froze, disassociated, and the way I tried to rationalize what happened immediately afterwards to try and make it less than it was and regain some semblance of agency, even to the point of shaking the bastard’s hand afterwards like it was all some nice positive experience that hasn’t left me with years of PTSD flashbacks.
And when you judge yourself for those actions, knowing someone you care about saw those same things… it can hurt and it can feel shameful and you can end up wanting nothing more to push them away.
So yeah, I understand why Ruth gets down the bad thought process she does here, but…
I think another element is that Ruth doesn’t want Billie to see how she is when she’s around her grandfather. She’s danced around the issue and Billie said as much in yesterday’s strip – she doesn’t talk about it. Having people you weak see you when you’re weak can be really hurtful, because you feel they’ll think less of you for your failure to stand up for yourself. Ruth tries to maintain a tough shell to protect herself from the world, and she doesn’t want Billie to see what she’s like without the shell.
…which you actually did talk about and I am an idiot I will hide under my bedsheets now.
But no, it’s a really important point to emphasize, because yeah, it’s a factor that isn’t talked about nearly enough in discussions of abuse.
How weak you feel to be observed in a trauma state. Making the sacrifices that you do, devolving into the person you need to be to survive, suffering through your trauma responses which are so rarely dignified.
It feels awful to be seen in that state, especially by people you care about and who you want to feel well of you. And it can be easier to slip into a self-abusing spiral when you’re observed than when you can take time afterwards to clean yourself up and minimize what happened*.
*Whenever I visited my parents alone, I’d spend about 30 minutes afterwards in the car blowing up at the air, hurting myself, crying my eyes out, punching the seat, and cleaning up so I could be ready to go “eh, it was all right, same old” when my partner at the time asked about it (the fact that I wasn’t really allowed to show strong emotions to her without her berating me for it also really didn’t help).
First of all, I’m sorry, Cerberus. You didn’t deserve that, and I’m glad you’re in a healthier place. *hugs*
Second, ugh, yeah. I remember once a bunch of boys sexually harassed me and another girl, in the library at my high school and what horrified me most was people seeing me freeze up, shaking, and dropping the book I was holding twice. Those were folks I didn’t know, for the most part, but if they were…..I don’t want to think about it. All I can picture is a very crabby outburst.
We saw this a little bit with Sal too – when her brother kept picking at her uniform and asking about it while she just wants to get in, exchange 5 minute pleasantries, and duck out without people pointing out the things she does to avoid fighting with her parents and having them dish out more emotional abuse than is normal. Or how determined AG is not to freeze around folks ever again.
Cerberus, I’m so glad you’re at the point you’re at now: healthy, stable, and able to look at things with a wiser eye. But I’m so sorry for everything that’s happened to you. (hugs if appropriate)
Wait between panels 4 and 5 did Billie go away? Or is she still there watching the trashcans get what was coming to them?
I’m sure she absconded out of there.
Billie went away, there’s space next to Ruth now.
I’m more wondering where Howard is right now. Has he just been kind of sitting off to the side silently watching this entire exchange?
God, I hope not. Maybe he’s pestering Sarah to show him some Game of Thrones or something. I’d be fine with that.
I do hope Howard becomes a main character.
Panel 3: This is a fuck up.
Like, yes, I understand the panic and fear that built up to this, but Ruth blows up here on someone who absolutely didn’t deserve it (and she very much knows this in the panels to follow) and it’s part of a pattern she’s done every time she feels trapped and hounded by an abuser (she did the same blow-up at Billie and push her away thing when Mary was targeting her).
And the content of her blow-up is… well, channeling elements of “sir”. Why didn’t you do as I asked, as I told you to? Why didn’t you follow instructions and stay in your place?
Again, I understand the fear for Billie that prompted it, but no survivor wants to feel the poison of their abuser spill out of their throat like that on someone they love and it’s shitty that that happened to Billie*.
*And I feel for Billie a lot here, because I’ve been in that Billie position a lot thanks to my ex and how… poorly she handled the abuse she received from her folks and how easy it became to use me as a release valve for all of that. And I really don’t want Ruth to continue making a pattern of what she did here, because Billie so doesn’t deserve this. “Sir” does.
Also, I love all the folks charting how her eyes are back to black after having the spark of life when Billie first defended her. Cause this is such a beautiful subtle visual depiction of something that happens in real life. Or at least something that happens to me a lot.
Which is I have hazel eyes that are really responsive to mood, so when I start to slip into a depressive spiral, my eyes actually literally start going grey in response. And so it’s cool to see that similar eyes reflecting mood thing going on for Ruth though I wish she finds her way out of her depressive spiral and the cage “sir” has placed her in.
Panels 4-6: Yeah, she knows this was a fuck up and is now in the smashing everything and anything around her in the pain and rage of what she was just subjected to and what she just did to Billie.
I really like Reltzik’s comment about the recycling bins being metaphorical of her recycling of “sir”‘s abuse. And how badly she doesn’t want to get stuck in that spiral of passing down his awfulness.
And it’s why I think she’s going to have to blow up at “sir” sometime. Because one of the ways that I’ve seen work best for folks getting stuck in that “passing down” thing is to really have a full go at their abuser and call them out.
It’s dangerous, it’s risky, and at the end of it, your abuser usually makes you feel like a piece of shit and hurts you more for it. But it helps you hold on to who is doing this to you so it’s less easy to dump on those who have nothing to do with it.
Also, let’s be frank, “sir” could do with a good screaming match from the offspring he so maligns.
But more than all that, what she needs most is to be free. Cause we’ve seen in her previous little bit how much better Ruth is when the dark clouds and feelings of being trapped aren’t all around her. How much more functional, how much more responsive to Billie she is, how much healthier their dynamic.
But in the fear and feelings of being trapped, all that gets blasted away and all the toxic dynamics come flooding back. And that’s one of the forgotten tragedies of this kind of abuse, how it damages everything that touches the person being abused. Makes everything harder and spills out secondary trauma on the whole support network. And sometimes that strain can be too much for the support network and they need to detangle entirely.
I don’t think Billie will, but it sucks to see her absorb what she does here. And I hope that Ruth manages an apology instead of just spiraling back down to another suicide attempt as is frighteningly likely right now.
O-U-C-H. That’s very true. Much like Amber, Ruth gets her script for abuse straight from her abuser.
Never seen Ruth with a weapon besides the slow poison of ethanol.
Poor Ruth 🙁
Poor Billie 🙁
Still, this is a step up from just silently taking “Sir’s” abuse. And the sad part is that I think Billie gets it. She knows just how shitty Ruth’s situation is, and she has enough experience with it, to know where the outburst is coming from.
I’m reminded of this
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/jacket/
EVERYONE, GIVE THEM ALL THE HUGS, NOW!!!
*all the DoA commentators hug Ruth en masse*
*all of the DoA commentators lose their femurs en masse*
It’s a worthy sacrifice.
*femurless* Worth it…
Turns out you don’t actually need your femurs to live! Just to walk. And I plan on being a programmer, writer, and webcomic maker, so that’s one skillset I’d gladly forfeit for the ability to LITERALLY BREAK DOWN THE BARRIER BETWEEN FICTION AND REALITY. It’s just like in Dr. Strange, except completely different.
Good cop: “You have to understand, Mr Willis, it looks a bit bad, how all your readers suddenly lost their femurs.”
Bad cop: “It looks really bad.”
Good cop: “And how they all got fed to wild dogs.”
Bad cop: “So many wild dogs.”
Good cop: “It just looks a bit… suspicious is all.”
Bad cop: “It looks really bad.”
Are we going to see Ruth go beat up one of the people on her floor? We’ve heard a lot about her bullying and violence but very rarely seen it. It’d be a good time I think.
Ruth steps out of the elevator and Mary is right there, saying something about how God sent her. . .
Ruth’s grandpapy keeps her too intimidated to talk back. As an RA Ruth keeps her charges too intimidated to complain. She pushes everyone away with abuse. Cllint has trained her to keep herself isolated and vulnerable to abuse from him.
Billie is one of the fires to be put out. By being there and mouthing of at him, Billie has become a target. This is a guy who could sweep gross negligence under the carpet and let Ruth keep her job. What can he do to Billie so she’s no longer an unwelcome distraction?
I think Ruth knows that and that’s why she yelled.
Seconded.
I think it comes down to what Billie’s price regarding Ruth would be. She did just say that money changes hands when her father yells at her, presumably to shut her up. If Billie plays her cards right, she might be able to use that against Clint and turn things around.
Granted, it’s a big if, and Ruth just spiked the odds of it happening big time with this outburst, but it could happen and, by gum, I’m holding out hope it will!
Yes, I think this was a huge concern. Ruth wanted to keep Billie out of her grandfather’s attention, and also now Billie has deliberately antagonised him again, which means that the consequences -RUTH- has to deal with could be made even worse now.
Billie just screwed the pooch to an epic degree by what she did earlier – she neither effectively protected Ruth from her abuser in future and both intensified future fire and painted a target on herself.
I agree that *Ruth* certainly believes he’s capable of doing something dreadful to Billie. She may be right, she may not. In Ruth’s life, he is omnipotent. In the larger world, he is clearly still powerful, but there have to be limits to that. The question is where those limits lie.
I think it should be noted my wife states this is something that just happens all the time. You can do the right thing, stand up for someone, and so on but a lot of times the anger just needs to spill out and often it happens to those you love. The best thing to do is be patient and understanding. Also, continue to be there for them.
Don’t forget to take care of yourself. Anger is hard-edged even if you know you are not the cause and just happen to be there.
And never be so understanding to say it’s alright they are lashing out at you. It’ understandable, but it’s not right!
Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.
Billie then handed Howard a fiver for snacks, pointed him in the direction of the nearest television, returned to Ruth’s room, and patiently awaited Ruth’s arrival, ready to listen.
*hisses through teeth*
*literally that is all I am capable of saying about this entire disaster*
*also hugs to everyone in the comment section and indeed the comic itself*
*and to the author for having to put the characters through this*
gotta love the rage that comes wit dat depression. fuck
I can’t blame Ruth for not wanting Billie to see her humiliated like that. Her self-esteem is weak enough without having to have people she loves watch her being round into the dirt.
That said, I strongly suspect that she’d prefer to be shouting at Clint and throwing things at him!
Bin there, done that.
Well, Ruth is trying to kick a bad habit.
We both kept a lid on it for way too long.
Sir: “My granddaughter doesn’t need the mandatory therapy you put her into.”
Doc: “Is that so? Why do you think so?”
Sir: “She has her job to do.”
Doc: “Hmm, yes. And?”
Twenty strips later, we cut back and Clint is full-on sobbing about all his buddies that never came home from Nam.
Nah, it just proves that even the boundaries theory isn’t absolute.
So my main takeaway from this strip is that no one on this floor recycles.
Those bins are totally empty, aren’t they?
Maybe they were recently emptied.
*garbage bin across the hall, overflowing with plastic bottles*
I work as a janitor at a college. So…the recycle bins are next to the garbage cans, and both have displays above them with pictures showing what to put where – all you have to do is match the things that look alike.
I swear everybody forgot how to match pictures immediately after leaving kindergarten. It’s not that everyone is lazy either, people will stand in front of the bins looking helplessly between their trash and the displays.
(rant over). (slinks off)
*breathes* Okay, I think I about now need to take a few days break from the comic cause this is all hitting way too close now.
Frankly…I’ve been in both Ruth & Billie’s shoes, in regards to both being in a (physically AND mentally) abusive childhood homophobic home…and being closeted in university..and attempting to date other (closeted or not) queer folx while dealing with all the aforementioned.
It’s well written and makes me concerned for Willis. I understand that author empathy enough to write characters who share neither your orientation nor your assigned gender is a thing.
But dude. Y’alright over there? *sends good thoughts*
To be fair…those recyclable bins were assholes.
I had a feeling one of two things would happen. Either Ruth would appreciate what Billie did in spite of the potential problems that would spring up as a result of trying to intervene directly. Or she’d… do this.
Damn.
I’ll be perfectly honest, although I recognise the “I Love you and Will Defend You” impulse that Billie had as being well-intentioned….she was stupid.
No, seriously, Billie was stupid.
She didn’t even do a good job of defending Ruth. She postured and made noise. She might have felt serious about it, but all she did was posture and make noise, and it wasn’t even effective noise, it didn’t hit any of the points which might have made “Sir” stop and think. All it did was make him angrier and more contemptuous of Ruth and her friend.
And Ruth is the one who has had to deal with “Sir” and knows what he is likely to do. She is also the one who has to deal with the consequences now. She needed Billie to listen to her, desperately needed this, as something to keep herself and Billie that tiny bit safer. ~~And, it would have meant she had some tiny fraction of control over the situation, which Billie has just robbed her of.~~
Billie was trying to be noble, but sometimes the noblest, and most helpful, thing that you can do….is actually listen and do what the other person asks you to.
And more to the point she probably made matters worse.
OTOH, there’s probably nothing some random kid could do or say that would make Clint stop and think.
And Billie did disrupt the abusive rant he was going off on, so that’s a plus.
Sometimes having someone stand up for you and try is more important than anything else.
And Billie? Head cheerleader. Problem solver. Alpha bongo. Not a chance in hell she was going to meekly follow orders and go back upstairs. Or let someone tear into her Ruth.
This. Clint isn’t going to suddenly become reasonable and see the error of his ways. What Ruth needs most is to see that he isn’t all-powerful and somebody has her back. But she’s still afraid for Billie and has a ton of pent-up anger from the abuse she has just taken.
Regardless of whether or not it was a smart idea (remember the title of this comic), it was TOTALLY within character for Billie to defy orders and fight for Ruth. Robbing Ruth of her agency? Possibly. But Ruth’s ordering Billie to leave robbed BILLIE of HER agency.
I was just watching some dumb serial with my SO a few nights ago, and I asked them, “There’s a trope in these stories, where two people are risking their lives together, and one (usu a man) tricks the other (usu a woman) into staying behind, so as to protect them. But, doing so denies the other agency, doesn’t it? Would you rather I let you risk your life, or protect you, and deny you your agency?” Without hesitation, they said to let them risk their life. “That trope makes for good drama, but it SUCKS in real life.”
Agree with your take on the trope — BUT. If the issue is “you can stay and help defend yourself”, cool. If the issue is “stay and help defend me but actually put me in more danger and make things worse”, then however heroic the impulse, maybe not.
I agree it was totally in character for Billie.
But, I also totally understand how it feels like the worst thing that could possibly happen, to Ruth.
Good call, all of you who saw this coming.
Siiiigh just keep going to therapy Ruth
Just keep swimming
Why is anyone mad at Billie right now? She isn’t made of stone. It is not fair to expect her to see her SO being abused and just let it happen. And the idea of not intervening because it might make things worse just normalizes the abuse.
Maybe in some sense it wasn’t the best strategic move. But that isn’t the whole picture.
There are some people to whom really bad things ought to happen.
Not that I am saying that I hope they DO, but, they really ought to.
He is THE prime candidate for this.
I read Billie’s eyes in panel 4 as rolling in a “whatever, you’re not in the place to deal yet” way. I am no doubt projecting here, but I get the sense that Billie’s seen this type of displaced anger before and she left so the storm can blow over. Or maybe I’m just hoping strongly that she didn’t take that outburst personally.
I don’t think she left. I think Ruth is so focused on turning on herself she no longer notices Billie.
she should have channeled that anger at the old man. good effort, wrong target.
She can’t. That’s the problem. She’s been trained and conditioned not to. That’s how this abuse works.
So it finds an outlet elsewhere.
She will, I suspect, before this story is over, but she’s not there yet.
Usually abuse begins when the abusee is small, and the abuser, an adult, has a size and strength advantage (bullies never pick on the strong). The abusee is conditioned to fear aggressing against the abuser, since it’s usually not effective, and provokes a nastier response from the adult. By the time the abusee is an adult, the behavior is so ingrained, it’s hard to resist.
Ruth is mad at herself, a little at Billie, but mostly herself. She feels she’s failed to protect Billie from Clint, and now she’s afraid of what her failure will cause.
I feel like I could relate with Billie here. My parents were emotionally abusive and I ran away from home a few times. Once or twice it was just to stay somewhere else for a few days, maybe a few States over where they couldn’t come after me. When I turned 18 I left for good. My parents don’t financially support me and don’t wield anything over me and my relationship with them has become so much better.
So when my friends have parents who are fucking awful abusive, homophobic, transphobic people, my immediate reaction is to get angry and tell my friends to tell their parents to eat shit. But I know that’s not reasonable, that comes at a cost. When I left my parents I went through a lot of hardship before my quality of life stabilized. My friends have parents who help them pay for cars, or for school. I never had that in the first place because my family is poor.
But if I saw a parent talking to my friend like that in front of me I think I’d go off on them, for better or for worse. I just have such a resentment for abuse of authority, over your own child no less.
I feel like Ruth a lot.
That’s bad, right?
hug?
I have DID, depression (possibly bipolar), ocd, C-PTSD, generalized anxiety, phobias, am in recovery for anorexia, and used to self harm as well, which all stems from severe abuse for most of my life. I’ve been the Billie and the Ruth, though I’ve worked hard to not be either, especially the Ruth, being autistic complicates things since it makes handling even harder. My daughter is also autistic and we’ve had to work hard not to end up in a Billie and Ruth situation, we finally came to a good solution when I get angry I take space and deep breaths and when my daughter gets angry, I remind her of her choices and give her a stress ball. There was a time when my daughter was quite literally physically abusing me and I was left fighting my C-PTSD and not responding well as i tried to protect myself. This was hard because it started getting bad when she was 3 and reached its peak when she was 4. My preschooler was beating me black and blue everyday and my only recourse was to either fight back, which I didn’t want to do but sometimes when I was trapped I had to use force to get away (though I was as gentle as possible), or to hide, I generally chose to hide. I was suicidal at this point and didn’t know what to do. Thankfully, I stumbled on a site that gave me techniques to try with her that lead to things making a complete 180. Now she hasn’t gotten physical with me in 6 months and is handling anger much better. Basically, my personal experience makes me confident that Ruth and Billie can learn a better pattern.
All the best to you.
Thanks very much.
They both did what they thought was best possible for the other person. They both know that “best possible” wasn’t very good. When calm they’ll both know that the other one did what they thought was best from a set of poor possibilities. And they’ll both know that they shouldn’t be angry at each other. And it won’t help.
I’ve been finding myself trying to map this whole horrid scenario onto John Darnielle songs (because that’s what I do) as this has been going on. For the office scene, there’s some good songs off of Sunset Tree. But for this scene, the line “my heart’s an autoclave” fits to a heartbreaking extent. (Live version here.)
I really hope the overall story here is going to be “things are going to be rocky, but in the end, even two depressed sexual minorities from abusive families can life happy fulfilling lives” and not “no, sorry, Ruth is just too fucked up to have that kind of happiness”. I see a lot of myself in Ruth, and I want things to turn out well for her and her non-normative relationship.
…at least the bins look empty. All Ruth would need right now would be to have to pick up a lot of sticky soda cans because she made a mess.
I say that from the point of having pointlessly lashed out at inanimate objects in the past.
I think in panel two Billie just got an important lesson in reading situations
Oh, and, Billie? Ruth IS still RA. Technically. Just, not YOURS.
Billie doesn’t know that. For all she knows, Ruth was fired.
oh no, the eyes are not green again. Also, she’s acting like Clint.
“HDU not hang back while I isolate myself and hate myself and continue to destroy myself because I was raised by somebody who wants to eat me all up!”
Unfortunately, this is true to life.
I think Ruth’s outburst was meant for Sir and Billie had the bad luck to be the one talking to Ruth right then…
The stress was from him, and the anger was at him. But the words were his… and that’s the worst part.
So Ruth is so mad at herself that she’s kicking a trash bin at herself in the previous panel.
(Too many comments to go through to see if anybody else said that)
Dammit Ruth, stop yelling at the wrong people, get some gumption and start yelling at the RIGHT people
Starting with that prick of a Grandfather of yours.
Sticking around and interrupting Sir’s abuse? Probably a good move on Billie’s part.
Immediately beginning to make light of the situation? Like, sure, Ruth shouldn’t have lashed out, but even if she was perfectly level-headed at the moment, I still couldn’t blame her for being incredibly angry.
You don’t tell someone you care about them by saying “You’re not the boss of me now!” when they’re clearly very hurt.
Billie thank you.
Yeah, I still don’t sympathize with Ruth.
I kinda do…she’s fucking terrified of the old guy who’s been physically abusive her whole life, that’s basically my upbringing.
Yeah, but she’s also an abusive and unhealthy girlfriend.
No neither as I don’t think shes made amends for how she treated the wing however, depending on what happens next and if theres an act of contrition (or just a decent apology), I may well start to have some (limited) sympathy for her
Dammit, that’s a reply to Jesse
This reminds of Amber throwing the chair.
I don’t know what it was about this one, but this was a difficult comic for me to get through. I think it’s because I’ve been the Billie in this strip so often before it brought out a lot of those emotions. I’m just sitting here sobbing and having a hard time stopping right now.