everyone deals with mental illness differently and need different kinds of self-care as a result. its not helpful to completely shut down “cutesy” types of self-care posts just because it doesn’t happen to help you in particular. maybe you need the tough love kind of stuff, but some people are going to need the gentle encouragements, the reminders that they arent bad ppl for being mentally ill- a go-ahead to be kind to themselves because its already so god damn difficult as it is.
mentally ill ppl are not a hivemind and we are going to have different needs and that’s ok.
african americans are black but you can be black and not be african american; the two are not synonymous, stop erasing people’s cultural identities
Seriously. I heard of an American article that called Nelson Mandela South Africa’s first African American president. Smh. African American is not a blanket term for all black people and it’s annoying that this has to be said
I’ve seen a few tribute posts to Leonard Nimoy going around that use Christian imagery and iconography and while I respect everyone’s right to honor him in their own way I’d like to remind everyone that Leonard Nimoy was Jewish and should be respected and remembered as such. Please try to respect that in any posts, art, or other tributes you may make to his memory. Please don’t erase this part of his identity. Thanks.
In situations where you have to survive, at any cost – when you get kidnapped and stay there for years, when you go to war and kill people, when everyone you love dies in the apocalypse – you can survive, if you start paring parts of your soul away.
Sometimes this isn’t a big deal. If you pare away the part of yourself that gets disgusted at things, you stop caring when you have to clean the toilet. (Or you stop caring about whether the toilet is clean at all.) If you pare away the part of yourself that cares about the difference between Mozart and Rachimanoff, you can just tell people that you don’t like music.
But some parts are more critical. If you pare away the part of yourself that expects things to turn out right in the end, reality will stop letting you down. If you pare away the part of yourself that knows what it is like to be happy, you’ll stop missing the idea of being carefree. If you pare away the part of yourself that wants there to be a better tomorrow, you’ll have no aspirations to crush. There’s simply less of you to hurt, and so it hurts less. But it also makes it harder to find joy.
And when people are younger, and don’t know their souls as well, they often cut through parts of themselves that an older person would try to preserve. The ability to love. The ability to trust. The ability to feel.
Maybe you can grow them back, through years of dedication and an environment where other people have those parts intact so you can borrow from them. I know, at the very least, that it takes a very long time.
The thing about having a soul that’s been pared down to survival, though, is that you don’t care, you don’t feel. And if you grow up in the kind of world where not caring is a good thing, where taking advantage of people is just something other people do, where aspirations beyond the next few days are worse than useless – you won’t realize that good things can come from these parts of a soul, because you already cut them off and threw them away when you knew only suffering and hatred.
— Sandra Hisakawa, practicioner of the Heart-Magic
I like trigger warnings. I like them because they’re not censorship, they’re the opposite of censorship. Censorship says “Read what we tell you”. The opposite of censorship is “Read whatever you want”. The philosophy of censorship is “We know what is best for you to read”. The philosophy opposite censorship is “You are an adult and can make your own decisions about what to read”.
And part of letting people make their own decisions is giving them relevant information and trusting them to know what to do with them. Uninformed choices are worse choices. Trigger warnings are an attempt to provide you with the information to make good free choices of reading material.
And my role model here, as in so many other places, is Commissioner Lal: “Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master.”
Trigger warnings fight those who would like to be our masters in another way as well. They are one of our strongest weapons against the proponents of censorship. The proponents say “We can’t let you air that opinion, it might offend people.” Trigger warnings say “I am explaining to you exactly how this might offend you, so if you continuing listening to me you have volunteered to hear whatever I have to say, on your own head be it, and let no one else purport to protect you from yourself.”
it’s national eating disorder awareness week and to anybody else dealing with one right now or anybody who has dealt with one in the past: you’re incredibly strong and i’m proud of you. they aren’t easy to deal with and no matter what anybody else says about it the fact that you have the strength to deal with something like this is so amazing im proud of you and love you all
I know a lot of suicidal transfolk have been getting a lot of publicity ever since Leelah. Now, its great that trans issues are being brought to light, but what I’m seeing literally horrifies me.
I keep seeing more of these PSAs and add-like notifications that trans people are committing suicide. The biggest message behind it all is “they have a name”. I know that transgender suicides are NOT unheard of and have been happening since before Leelah, but something occurred to me that chills me to the bone.
I don’t want this to be a trend.
Transgender kids, teens, and adults NEED to know that there are other ways to be heard. You DO have a voice. Please, for the love of my fellow transfolk, do NOT kill yourselves. Your life isn’t a trend or a statement to be said and left alone. Your voice can be just as powerful, it can be MORE powerful.
Please just whatever you do, dont let these posts about other peoples suicides let you think that it is in any way a good place to turn. This isnt what Leelah wanted or stood up for and its not what I stand for. The road to acceptation should not be paved with the bloody suicides of our brothers and sisters. Suicide is not the answer- even if you don’t feel like anyone out there loves you then please know that I love you and my heart aches for every single one of you- those who are here and those who have gone.
it’s important that we pay tribute to Leelah and Zander, but it’s also important that we pay tribute to the five trans women of color murdered in 2015 so far. I have seen next to nothing about these women. They are just as important as Leelah or Zander. They deserve the same recognition. They deserve the same respect. Remember their names.
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