TERFs Be Like

One of the really shitty things about being a minority in the U.S. is that, even though you know it’s wrong to play the Oppression Olympics, you sometimes lose the capacity to want the lack of oppression, and instead look at other oppressed communities and think “I wish we could trade our forms of oppression for a day.”

In a relationship or two? Feel each other's bits for cancer. Celebrate a clean exam with more feeling of each other's bits.

I wanna hear a gay guy sing "I Kissed a Girl," like he's secure in his homosexuality, he just had a bi-curious moment. "I kissed a girl, and I liked it, the taste of her cherry chapstick. I kissed a girl, just to try it, hope my boyfriend don't mind it. It felt so wrong, it felt so right, don't mean I'm in love tonight..."

“Look at all these inspirational posts. I could get started on my goals right now. I have books    to learn from, and tools to practice. I have free time right now. Nothing’s stopping me.” *continues scrolling past the thought*

The Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Echo Chamber

I love my social networking echo-chamber. Half of the "real world" tries to feed me bullshit about what I do or don't deserve as a brown, bisexual, poor, biracial , chubby woman, while much of the other half acts like that shit's at least up for debate in order to appear "able to have a rational conversation." You're goddamn right I created a virtual room in which people support me. The evils of the echo-chamber only need to be worried about if you already have fair representation outside of your chamber.

Most, if not everyone wants and enjoys relationships with others. For many who grew up being abused at the hands of those who were supposed to love them, however, the need for loving attention is both pathologically desperate, and needed for healing. The saddest part of this aftermath is that victims also often gravitate towards the abusers, who are more than happy to take advantage. The fervent need for the time, love, and respect of someone is even harder to attain for those who have been groomed to believe that neglect is normal, abuse is deserved, and basic decency is generous. In those relationships where a decent partner has been found, the formerly abused party is more likely to take the relationship quite seriously - why would their partner treat them with respect and be present unless they deeply loved them? Heartbreak ensues when their partner leaves, and they discover that, even though this person cared for them to some degree, that basic respect was not love, but simply the default behavior of a decent human being. Where it often ends is at the panic and self-loathing which dovetail with abandonment issues that come come crashing back in. We are worth more than this.

TW: Suicide -

-

-

- After a boy cut his arms and told a staff member he wanted to die, the staff member allowed him to shower unsupervised for forty minutes, without reporting his wounds or suicidal thoughts to anyone else. This staffer later said they "don't like" to read patients' backgrounds, and had not done so with this boy. This is why we need to take mental health seriously. It's not about being a coward or giving up- even when we fight it and seek medical attention, our condition is brushed off.

http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/11/youth_psychiatric_facility_in.html

Friend: "What's your favorite food?" Me: "Synthetic neurotransmitters." Friend: "What?" Me: "What?"

"Those blankets look like there's a person under them. But my SO is downstairs, so obviously not. They're just lumped in a person-shape. I'm not that paranoid." *stomps on blankets to be sure*

It's Not Just You, Supporting Your Suicidal Loved Ones. They're Supporting You Too.

I'm going to toot my own horn here, indirectly remind others with depression how great their work is, and directly tell those who are not suicidal to appreciate the work we do. Conversations about the relationships between suicidal and non-suicidal people are almost always framed as what *you* are doing to support *us.* That's an important topic, but talking about it to the exclusion of what *we* do for *you* is detrimental. There's an important element that suicidal people are constantly attacked for non-adherence, but when we *do* adhere to this unofficial "rule," we don't get recognition, much less respect and appreciation for it. We work our asses off to keep the struggle going FOR YOU. We don't want the people we care about to be sad. So we continue to live a life that is bad enough to prefer death (or, for many, not prefer death per se, so much as we want something to end, and death is or seems like the only way to achieve ending it). We could be doing this for a single day or several years, and everywhere in between. It's exhausting, mentally and physically. I have never had a job that was as hard as staying alive when I have an illness that literally makes me want to die. It's WORK. I don't have to put that work in. None of us do. If you have an at-risk loved one still hanging on, odds are it's because of the intensely difficult labor they put in to make sure you don't have to deal with loss just yet. Treat them like who and what they are. Treat them like someone who is immensely considerate of you, who routinely sacrifices what they want for you. Treat them like someone who has a hard job with long hours. Treat them like someone who has a chronic illness that is more manageable at some times than others.