responsible-reanimation:

queenshulamit:

mars-maggie:

When I was in college, I had a wonderful mentor/professor who helped me learn lessons that keep being relevant as I go through life—which, if you ask me, is the tell-tale sign that he was a great professor.

One of those lessons was that it could be almost impossible to establish self-worth, and to recognize self-acheivement. After we’ve learned how to do something—ANYTHING—really well, it seems almost like second nature for us to do it. Even if we’re producing quality work, we look at it and think ‘well, sure this turned out well but anyone out there could have done it if they put the time in.’ We forget that WE are the ones that put the time in to learn the skill, and that WE are the ones who now have something special for it.

Here’s an example:

This professor told me about a time when he was at a conference giving a talk. After he was done with his seminar (which was probably about something awesome like chaotic oscillators) he went on to listen to other professors and industry professionals give their talks. There was one he was sitting on, thinking to himself ‘WOW this guy is cool. Here he is building a genetic search engine (or some other incredible topic) while I’m just dorking around with chaotic oscillators.’ but then, after the talk, my professor went up to him. He wanted to tell him how neat he found the subject and the guys research… And when he got up there, the guy went ‘OH WOW you are that professor with the chaotic oscillators! I saw your seminar and I was so excited by it! You’re really doing something incredible while I’m just dorking around with genetic search engines.’ And thats when my professor realized that JUST BECAUSE THINGS SEEM COMMON TO US DOESN’T MEAN THAT THEY ARE COMMON. Our skills, our lessons, and our experiences are unique to each of us, we just are looking at them through the fogged glass of ‘been there, done that.’ Others won’t be looking at them through that same glass.

If you ever see artwork and say ‘wow I wish mine was that good,’ or read a story and say ‘gee I wish that I could write like that,’ you have to also remember that there is probably someone out there saying the same exact thing about your work to themselves. It might even be the exact same person who you’re envying.

Please never forget that your experiences have made your own work into something valuable. YOU have put the time into it. YOU have something unique. YOU have something that it would take somebody else at least as long to duplicate, and it would still never come out the same way that you do it.

We fixate so often on comparing ourselves to other people, but we judge ourselves the most unfairly. We look at what they have, and we fret about what we don’t have, and we forget that we aren’t defined by what we don’t have.

Your work is important, and it is only going to get more important from here.

Today at training this lady was really impressed by the stuff I know about various disabilities and it was weird to me that it was impressive to her but it made me happy.

When I mention feeling boring and stagnant and I get sheer disbelief, it really helps. Impostor syndrome/generally feeling like nothing I have to say is interesting might not ever be truly defeated, but I can take strides to rein it in.

h-elloheaven:

justdoitdaily-fitblr:

Sunday nights can be pretty rough. Try not to let yourself get too sad or anxious about the week ahead. You can get through anything that’s going to happen this week. You will do marvelous things and it’ll be WONDERFUL.

Here is your Sunday evening reminder that you can handle and make it through whatever this week throws at you.

thewomanfromitaly:

kaninchenzero:

snow-anne:

kiriamaya:

thequeernamedaugust:

It is totally okay to slip up and misgender yourself sometimes. It doesn’t make you any less trans. You were raised to think you were (male, female) and that you would never be anything other than that. Don’t beat yourself up over it if you misgender yourself!!

THIS IS SO IMPORTANT HOLY FUCK. Especially since people will try to convince you that slipping like that means you’re “not really” what you say you are.

Also, please don’t feel embarrassed if you still have your old name/body/presentation in your dreams. It means nothing, they’re just dreams and everyone knows dreams can be silly buggers! :3

also you will react to hearing your old name for a long time. which doesn’t excuse others from calling you by it; supporting trans people means helping us get used to being properly named and gendered. (trust me: we aren’t. we can all use the practice.)

Honestly, this is one of the most important things for trans kids to hear, PLEASE reblog it. Holy shit.

I can’t even tell you the number of horrible self-hating thoughts that will float into your mind if you’re transitioning but slip up on YOURSELF, and its absolutely reasonable when you’ve been taught to associate yourself with a gender and name you’re uncomfortable with for years, decades even.

karynchaotic:

if you see someone active on social media or something, and you message them, and they don’t reply, they don’t have to. just because they are awake and alive does not mean they have to engage with you whenever you want them to. you are not entitled to someone else’s time. 

in the past, an abuser would see me post online and then hound me on aim until i answered. i felt like i had to hide. they also lived in my building and would pound on my door if they saw me online and i wasn’t responding to them. i had to completely ditch a screenname, lie about having skype, and turn off my phone to hide. if i saw they were online i couldn’t post on facebook or interact with anyone without them demanding to interact with me. the only legitimate excuse not to talk to them was being asleep. in their eyes, if i were really their friend, i would always want to engage no matter what, even if i had a migraine or work to do or wasn’t feeling very social. it didn’t matter. 

please do not do this. if someone doesn’t write you back, don’t guilt them about where they are or what they’re doing. if you see someone posting on tumblr or facebook and they aren’t signed into aim or google or skype or whatever, that’s their business. if they are signed on but don’t write you back, it’s okay. sometimes people can’t talk to everyone all the time every time. some people can only talk to one person at a time without getting overloaded. some people are signed on in case someone needs to contact them with something important and not to be social. they’re not always hiding from you, and you shouldn’t make them feel like they HAVE to hide from you.

this is probably jumbled and i’m probably missing a lot here, but pressuring people to always be available to you every hour of the day and always answer the phone or text or chat or pm or whatever…if you require that of someone, you might need to take a step back.