Though The Jokes That "since Gay Pride Month Is Over, July Is Now Gay Wrath Month" Are Funny And All,

I'm in a support group for queer adults with disabilities (before I joined i didn't even know there *were* groups for that overlap, it's amazing and I love it) and we had our digital meeting on Monday. I shared your most recent flag update, where you had moved the new version to the public domain. Especially since we were talking about the ADA and its anniversary, it was very fitting. Everyone really liked it! Several people commented about the symbolism, in particular. So, just letting you know of some responses from outside tumblr. Thank you for putting it out there!

Thank you!

(Confession: At the time you first sent me this ask, the new version of the flag was not yet in the Public Domain. But it is, now! 🏴🎇🏴)

Shamelessly plugging the new version, again – especially since I want it to eclipse the old one:

To the extent possible under law, Ann Magill has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to Visually Safe Disability Pride Flag. This work is published from: United States.

And for those who want detailed ‘specs’:

The ratio of overall breadth to overall length is 3 to 4. The ratio of the flag’s overall length to the width of each stripe is 10 to 1 (So the ratio of the overall length to the width of the combined stripes is 2 to 1).

The Hexadecimal codes for each of the colors are:

The Field: #585858

The Red: #CF7280

The Yellow: #EEDF77

The White: #E9E9E9

The Blue: #7AC1E0

The Green: #3AAF7D

Now, as to the symbolism: in the original flag, the zigzags were meant to represent “navigating around barriers.” But instead, they were the barrier – so they were removed.

So let me put the story of the new symbolism into words – here and now– and thereby bring it into being:

The Black, as it was from the beginning, represents rage and mourning for those who’ve suffered violence and abuse because of their disabilities.

The five colors, in order from left to right, represent bodily disability, neurodivergent disabilities, invisible and/or undiagnosed disabilities (always in the center, because any disability can be invisible at any time), mental illness/emotional disabilities, and sensory disabilities.

The colored band starts at the top of the hoist, which is a starting place of honor, and ends at the fly, which represents moving outward into the world.

Walls and locked doors (behind which Disabled People have been hidden for too long) are right angles, and square. And so the colored band is a diagonal that cuts across those right angles, in defiance.

The five stripes are parallel, to represent our solidarity.

There! How’s that?

Hi! I’ve been diagnosed with BP2 just today, I will start with the meds tomorrow and I am looking for friendly blogs to follow.

I am new to everything and don't even know what I need but your blog looks nice 🙊 also, what is your propic? Is it a pride flag? Does BP have one?

Looking for advices as someone completely new on the matter! 🙈

welcome to the community! im glad you found my blog helpful and if theres ever anything i can do to help just let me know! As for your questions:

some friendly blogs to follow

@lumberjackloving // @bipolstar // @bxpolar // @bipolarbotany // @bipolarpng // @basicbipolarbitch // @actuallybipolar2 // @hypomania-dreams // @bipolarblueberries // @bipolarbuttercup // @lamiictal // @bipolar2andbpd // @bipolarmoss // @bipolar-type-2-confessions //

and @compassionatereminders, @positiveautistic, and @recoverystuff aren’t bipolar specific but they are my favorite reovery/positivity blogs!

that should get you started!

My profile pic

My profile pic is indeed the flag that I made for Bipolar Disorder! It’s a redesign of a slightly more popular flag which can be found here.

Some Advice

Comply with your meds! If you have a problem, speak to your psychiatrist, don’t just go off of them yourself, it can be dangerous.

Set a regular sleep schedule. sleeping too much or too little can induce or worsen depression or hypomania so going to bed and waking up the same time every day is a good idea.

Try tracking your mood with an app like Daylio or Bearable, that way you can see patterns and swings at a glance

Just like winter can cause depression in people without bipolar, spring can bring hypomania in those with bipolar. Just a heads up since spring is right around the corner

Blue light, the kind of light phones and computers give off, can cause your brain to stop making melatonin, the sleep chemical. That can cause or worsen hypomania during spring time so consider using an app or program designed to block the blue light from around 6pm until you go to bed during springtime.

your symptoms might not look exactly like other people’s symptoms and that is absolutely okay. bipolar presents in different ways for everyone. dont worry about faking or ‘doing it wrong’

make some friends in the community! this community has made me feel a lot better about my diagnosis. its a very welcoming and friendly group of people! Welcome, and congrats on a diagnosis <3

Some rando: You should think about stopping your prescription

Me: My pills make me not want to die tho

They: You shouldn’t want to die, that’s not normal

Me: Yeah that’s why I’m taking my pills

you might have seen this bipolar flag around and i really liked the concept but i thought i’d take a spin at it and recolor/redesign 

i have never met an unpsychotic person who knows what it actually means to “not encourage the delusion” …not a single one

I-d

Why do we love to pathologise normal behaviour online?

By reducing nuances of mental health to sweeping statements, social media might actually be leading to over-diagnosis.

Did you enjoy reading as a child? I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but the cherished hours you spent reading Harry Potter books were actually just your body’s way of dissociating in an uncomfortable environment (also RIP to your idea of JK Rowling as a decent person). Do you sometimes forget to text your friends back? It’s probably, definitely, because of a past trauma, and certainly not the natural result of a culture in which we are expected to be socially available at all times. Better get a therapist on the line! Do you struggle to concentrate at your office job, where you spend eight hours a day performing boring tasks in front of a screen? I hate to be the one to tell you this, but there’s probably something immutably wrong with the chemicals in your brain. 

As far as the internet is concerned, just about everything you do might be evidence of a troubling pathology. Social media can undeniably be a great resource for people experiencing mental illness, alongside people who have ADHD, and people who fall somewhere along the autism spectrum. A condition like ADHD, for example, is still said to be underdiagnosed (particularly among women) and raising awareness about this might bring people to a diagnosis they sorely need. But as with many things online, there is a downside to a free, entirely unregulated flow of information. 

This is good. It talks about capitalism too.

Pals, I’m gonna tell you one of those hard truths, and I hope that you can read this and think about it in the spirit in which it’s intended.

The vast majority of you do not have “triggers”, you have “squicks”. If you learn the difference, I promise you will be happier and healthier, and you will feel much MUCH less as if all media is attempting to personally attack and traumatize you. 

It is ABSOLUTELY LEGIT to dislike something in a piece of media, or to feel disgusted and revolted by it, or to have an aversion to it for any reason and to any degree. That’s normal! That’s absolutely normal, and if that has happened to you, then you are normal too.

But… Words matter. Words have power. There is a difference between “disgust” and “trauma response” – if a person without PTSD or other forms of trauma calls something that disgusts them a “trigger”, they are giving that thing undue and dangerous power over them. You do not have to legitimize your disgust, because your feelings are already valid. But saying “this triggers me” if it doesn’t actually trigger you in the clinical definition means that you are voluntarily giving up some of your own power and agency to the thing you dislike. It means that you are allowing the thing to have a disproportionate impact on your life, that you are giving it power to affect you and get under your skin and stay there. You are building it up into something much more terrifying and monstrous and serious than it deserves to be. Calling it a “squick” makes you bigger than the thing that’s grossing you out – it makes the gross thing into something that you can have power over, that you can vanquish and reject and entirely discard from your life according to your own whimsy. (For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term “squick”, it’s something you don’t like which causes that icky squirmy “ew! no thanks!” feeling. Here’s the Fanlore page for more detail.)

We live in a society that wants to take power away from so many of us at all costs. Nobody hands you power or agency or confidence or strength – you have to claim those for yourself. If you have the ability to take control over something that squicks you, do it. Stand up for yourself and your media experience, and use the word that gives you power. You can turn your back on a squick and walk away without more than a lingering “ugh” feeling; it is almost impossible to do that with a trigger. A trigger ruins your whole day (ask me how I know!).

Words have power. Disgust is a normal human emotion. Your feelings are valid even when they’re not severe and catastrophic. 

"I support people with POCD as long as they seek help and don't act on their urges" people with POCD don't HAVE "urges" they have intrusive thoughts that they are disgusted and horrified by and would never act on, please learn the difference