How Diary of a Flopping Fish Was Started
A blank piece of paper and one good pen is when everything started. As soon as I got a handle on writing as a child, I got a taste for slinging words together. I was a quiet child, but I had a lot to say to anyone who would take the time to ask. Talking was always an anxious ordeal though, and writing has always been my safe space. Believe it or not, I enjoy writing for more than just the serious stuff you see here on Diary of a Flopping Fish. Many of my first stories were weird science fiction things plucked straight from my overactive imagination.
My drive to help people is just as strong as my love of writing so it was natural for me to steer towards this area of writing. In high school I discovered psychology because my high school offered an introductory class and it provided for why people are the way they are, and helped me to understand why I’m the way I am. However, it has really taken until recent years for me to really see who I am and where I was programmed. It took me decades to find the right kind of help, or even to just get help. I was raised by the “walk it off” generation and mental health was not something that people talked about or treated. In my parents’ generation defense, survival was more important than feelings when they were being brought up.
The more I tried to heal and set healthy boundaries, the more I realized how much my entire family (aunts and uncles included) on my mom’s side were affected by generational abuse in some way. Much of the trauma that I experienced early in life was perpetrated by other kids around my age, and there is not much information on how that affects children when they grow up. There were also quite a few teachers who were, as I recognize now, abusive in some way and again, there is not much that comes up in a search for that. Because of all the missing information I created this site to fill in the gaps, be an outlet for my healing, and spread the word on many things that I have struggled with and what I think many who have had similar experiences have also struggled with.
Diary Of a Flopping Fish was created in 2016 only a few months after I escaped abuse from relatives I had been living with as an adult. In true domestic violence fashion, this family member will never apologize for the trauma they put me through and has done everything they can paint me as some crazy person and everything they did to me was all my fault. I am being vague because I don’t want to go into specifics, and I don’t want to deal with her flying monkeys. What I know now is that many of the bad friendships and relationships I have had, I let go on because I was raised to believe that I didn’t deserve to be treated well and bad friends or boyfriends are usually how they are.
The Struggle To Find Safety
Much of my journey was more about getting to a spot where I can be physically and emotionally safe, and less about finding mental health help. Considering that, I think we are doing our population a disservice because I told a professional so many times what was going on with me, and not one mentioned it was probably domestic violence. They will happily give you pills to make you complacent with the abuse though. Why can’t we go to our doctor and tell them we’re in an unsafe home and get connected with resources to get out? Until that can happen domestic violence will continue. Often when someone is being severely abused at home, the only time they get privacy to express their trupoe thoughts is at the doctors, but doctors don’t seem to really be able to do anything.
It isn’t about recognizing if you’re in an abusive relationship of some sort, but if you can’t do anything about it what is the point of knowing? I went over some of the reasons that people stay or return to abusive living situations here and until we can create a support system designed to just get people out, and far away, and create new lives we will not be enabling victims to escape their abusers. I know that sounds like a tall order, but so did personal computers.
Mental Health and Domestic Violence
My fight for mental health awareness is strongly tied to my fight against domestic violence because we do not wake up one morning and have an anxiety disorder, or a mood disorder that developed completely on its’ own without any help from our living situation. That, to me, is truly crazy. If someone tells you they have one of these, it may not be a bad idea to assume they have suffered some sort of trauma. However, the person who abused them will always paint them as the crazy one, and always pretend that they had nothing to do with the state of their mental health. Part of supporting domestic violence survivors, and mental health awareness is understanding that.
Join The Fight With Me
This website exists as a voice for all of those who have been silenced and dismissed as being crazy or hormonal. It is for people who do not have a guide to life, and those who are looking for peace in a chaotic world. Join me in the fight against all kinds of domestic violence and help me bring a voice to the survivors of those who have been abused and the friends and family that have struggled to protect them.
Let me know what you think in the comments. Let’s have a conversation!
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The Diary Of A Flopping Fish and any posts or articles published on Diaryofafloppingfish.com are not reviewed by a therapist or medical or mental health professional. Resources are cited and opinion is opinion. No advice or opinions in any articles replace professional advice from a doctor, therapist, or any other kind of health professional. The author is not a licensed professional of any kind.
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