Anything you can select I can select better

Like Spacy, I also learned these patterns from my father. When I spoke up about them, he would immediately turn openly aggressive. And after leaving home, I met several people who behaved in the same way. Perhaps, on some unconscious level, I kept choosing partners like this in my youth so that I could eventually learn how to dissolve these kinds of relationships. As time went on, the forms became more subtle, but the essence remained the same: the quiet devaluation, the lack of response, the feeling of being ignored.

I had to learn to value myself, to recognize my own worth, and in situations like these, to stand up for myself — or at the very least, to ask the questions that needed to be asked.

I imagine that today, if someone treated André this way, he would let them know that it hurts and that he does not accept being spoken to like that. Chase’s whole behaviour is filled with passive aggression — the kind that is hard to catch in the moment, yet deeply wounding; often more painful than open hostility or rejection.

People like Chase often feel valuable only when they can devalue the other — André, and everything that mattered to him. It is a fragile way of holding oneself together. What surprises me is that André never addressed either the “trash‑duty” incident or this subtle belittling. Silence can sometimes protect a person, but it can also leave the wound untouched.

Man, oh man. I'm really glad I never had someone like that around me. There were a few toxic people, but they tried to be especially flattering—or they were so awkward that I broke off contact. Once again, a great picture to accompany an exciting story!

Chase was really someone ho needed to put other down to lift himself up. At least it looks like it and yes, it's quite similar to what my father always loves to do. Such toxic people can even recommend something just to say later, when you come up with it, that it's nonsense. Pure gaslighting just to put someone down. I am very sorry for everyone who has to go through it. Sometimes it needs time to figure out what's going on and then the damage is already done. You show this topic very nicely with this story and creation.

@KWriter am I missing something? I was goind to publish this soon for my short story illustration. By accident I found out automod flagged it. I wouldn't even have checked. What could have possibly upset automod?