Reba-Rabbit

Reba "Roadkill" Rabbit

@Reba-Rabbit

I'm just here to play around ;3

  • She/Her

NSFW (18+ only) /40yo/An exceptionally busty little rust haired rabbit who winds up being smeared on the highway every once in a while. You can call me Reba or Roadkill, whichever you prefer <3

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Reba-Rabbit
@Reba-Rabbit

Embrace being weird

What's the worst that's going to happen? So someone thinks you're weird. Y'know what else? More likely than not they'll think you're ENDEARINGLY WEIRD. Like, "Oh look another post by Reba, what's the flavor of the cartoon kink of the day? Ahh, it's flattening again, heh, should have known, that's what it is every other day." Like, people who express themselves and their joy in their interests, even if the person viewing them doesn't share those same interests, tend to be seen as more relatable than those who stifle and smother themselves... and it's because seeing someone derive joy from something, even if you don't derive the same joy from it, humanizes them.

So be weird. Take it from your auntie Reba, being weird is just being unique. Some people are only comfortable with conformity, but those people are boring and pitiable. The OTHER people, the ones who enjoy human uniqueness in all its flavors just because it's neat to know "that kind of person" exists? They're the ones who will share in a community with you. Who will have your back while you have theirs. They're the folks who, if they're currently capable of it, will offer aid to those in dire straits. Because they see humanity FIRST instead of one's differences.

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Reba-Rabbit
@Reba-Rabbit

I understand. u_u Take your time and be gentle with yourself. I don't think I made clear in my post that you can "embrace the weird" and still have anonymity. I'm sorry for not being clear like that and excluding yourself and others from what I was talking about. You can definitely have reasons you don't want to combine the "weirder" part of your life with the more normal, I do myself(shame isn't my reason btw), you definitely don't have to... but what I've found is that even with just an anonymous outlet to be "my full self" I've been feeling a lot better and brighter this past month that I've been on cohost than I have in years.

Prior to being here, with a very small exception years in the past, I was too afraid to show who I was even through anonymity. The societal pressure to conform had been pounded into me so hard that I found it difficult to talk about this stuff even in those friendlier circumstances. All I could manage was to make burner accounts and follow people who shared my interests, consuming the artwork and stories without any self expression in the matter, not even commenting back on their posts. I guess that was the lens I was seeing things through. Again, I'm sorry for excluding you and others with different circumstances. It might not have been what I intended but I should've understood while writing this and been more broad with my words.

Take care Lizzie. And like I said, be gentle with yourself, and give yourself the time needed to find a way that feels comfortable to you. <3

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girl-biter-420
@girl-biter-420

Oh no I wasn't feeling excluded at all! I should've been more clear. I was just commiserating about the way that sometimes it's much easier to be kind do others than it is to be kind to myself.

I wasn't saying "It's easy for other people to do this, but not for me", I was saying that if I see someone else having a good time with their Cool Idiosyncratic Weirdness, my first response is "woah neat! What an endearing weirdo! I love that for them. Isn't the spectrum of human experience so neat in its infinite complexity?" but then in turn, I have a hard time treating myself with that same kindness and patience, and expecting that it would be extended from others.

So yeah. Sorry for the ambiguity. I agree wholeheartedly with the post, being weird owns.

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Reba-Rabbit
@Reba-Rabbit

Oh, I see, looks like I misinterpreted things XD Completely different meaning intended from what my brain computed. Sorry bout that. It happens ;)
I get what you're saying now. For really real this time ^u^; Brains can be mean in a multitude of ways. Learning to treat oneself with kindness and patience is a long term project. I only suffer from one aspect of hypervigilance in my more personal life... but when it comes to the time I spent in school, I felt this way majorly. Part of the reason I've never exactly taken to the idea of higher education despite the opportunities I now lack from not being able to(I never had the cold hard cash for college either so the fact I've got issues there was never going to come up).

One of the first teachers I had in my life was an abusive bully. She liked to single me out to be a constant disappointment/problem/nuisance etc. Verbal and emotional and, yes, physical abuse. Now that I'm grown I recognize it as feeling like a predator going after the slowest and weakest prey available. She really made me a mess for the rest of my time in school, and in some ways beyond. I felt like there was a guillotine above my neck at all times and that if I didn't perform exceptionally it would drop. And if I did mess something up it was like the end of the world. It even affected the way other students interacted with me so it ended up not just being the teacher-student relationships that made me feel that way. I literally got to the point in life where I would throw up practically every morning before school. ...I'm very lucky that my brain conflated that feeling almost completely to the educational setting. Other than my social anxiety problems, I haven't felt like that since I quit school.

I haven't actually worked on myself much regarding most of this, since it doesn't really come up for me anymore, however... The advice I've been given about my social anxiety is that to slowly get acclimated to those social situations that trigger that anxiety... the way I perceive other people's perceptions of me... is to slowly put myself into social situations that are just outside of my comfort zone. Dipping a toe in basically. After enough instances of doing that without repercussions it gets a just a bit easier. And then you move up to the next level of what you're uncomfortable with, etc. It's why I'm able to talk to people via comments but I'm quite bad at doing actual full RP. Being put on the spot to come up with responses that are "of value" to the other person/people still sets off all the alarms. ...but I can at least talk to people like this now, without feeling a twinge of anxiety.

So yeah, good luck moving forward. Keep dipping your toe in, slowly. I can't say for the rest of it, but for the social anxiety part at least, it does start to make things easier over time <3 (Also, gawd this was a long post... sorry about that. When I get absorbed into something I can actually be pretty verbose now it seems ^-^;).

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girl-biter-420
@girl-biter-420

Yeah. It's a constant and unending process. Some days it's easier than others.

I'm sorry that you were put through all that ;_; few things worse than people abusing their authority over kids. It breaks my heart to hear about teachers like that. The damage they can do is so deep and so vile.

And yeah, I've been trying to slowly acclimate. I spent so much of my life feeling overwhelmingly negative and ashamed about it. Hell, a few years ago, the very idea of even making a sideblog like this one would have been utterly paralysing. But with practice, the anxiety is indeed getting more manageable. The more times I put myself out there, the easier it gets.

The most important step was simply starting to follow people who were having a good time with it all. Seeing the way that their interests brought them joy, like you said. It helped start give more weight to the question "if they can have fun with it, why can't you?" and eventually I ran out of excuses to not at least try.

I spent so long in the stifling and smothering camp that I barely knew how to even feel neutral. Knowing how to be kind to myself about this stuff is good, but it takes a long time for my body to really truly feel it. To feel safe. I still don't know where I'm really going to land but I'm doing my best to get my body up to speed.

The point is: thanks for being endearingly weird. It genuinely is wonderful. I'll do my damnedest to follow your example <3. You bring me joy by finding joy yourself.

(and I appreciate a long post. I'm not great at being concise. See above for proof!)

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Reba-Rabbit
@Reba-Rabbit

Aw <3 I'm really glad you're making progress. I believe in you and that you're going to reach a place of comfort with yourself and others. And, I''m glad if I've been a help through example ^u^; That's honestly the best kind of complement a person can get ;u; Having a positive impact on someone's life, big or small, is an incredible honor. TTuTT Good luck Lizzie, I'm rooting so hard for you <3

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