I feel like maybe, I should write a short thing about the comics I'm making these days, prompted by some concerned questions and comments.

• these are things that happened to me.
• I'm ok/safe now, that relationship ended a couple of years ago.
• this guy was a real jerk. However, I'm not making the comic to make him look bad, or to describe the relationship in its entirety. That'd be a fuckton of work, and this guy isn't worth a fuckton of work.
• what I do want to show is his particular brand of abuse, and a lot of that was moving up tolerances/crossing boundaries in a way that felt confusing and alienating, rather than just threatening and wrong. I think it's important to show what "Very Bad" can look like, for a couple of reasons:
  • It's still really hard for me to explain to people what was wrong, or how things got so far. "why did you let him do that?" is a too common question, that shows little insight in how abusive relationships tend to work.
  • If I can help even one person realize they aren't alone, or that "a bad relationship" doesn't need to include physical violence, and it helps them in some way, then that'd be useful and good.
• This also explains the format. "gag comic about abusive relationship" works surprisingly well to show how weird everything was. most of the time I just felt confused as hell.

(if this comic makes you suspect you find yourself in a relationship that has (emotional) abuse on the menu, please talk to someone, educate yourself on how these kind of relationships tend to go, and keep in mind you are good and smart and deserve good things.)

Thanks for reading the comics + thanks for kind/concerned words c: