"life doesnt get better, you just get stronger" does NOT include ages 11-17. life does in fact just get better from there. those years are dogshit. like, you do get stronger but its mostly just a factor of not being 11-17 anymore. positive thinking helps but it doesnt fix whatevers going on at 15, you have to brute force through that one raw
Laios saying he's stronger and better organized than Shuro because he eats 3 meals every day and sleeps properly is probably one of the most encouraging things a fictional character has ever said to me
I think so many people are so deeply alienated from themselves that they have no clue how to exercise their free will and autonomy. For some, this alienation runs so deep that they are afraid of their own autonomy and humanity. It is completely understandable why one would have those feelings, but it can be worrisome.
I want to help others who feel this way, so here are small things I have done to exercise my free will:
Add "guilty pleasure" songs to playlists and actually listen to them (I have a ton of late 1990s-early 2000s music I listen to now proudly that I never listened to in the past out of shame)
Getting the décor item, bath set, bed spread, ect. in the patterns you like, even if it's "childish" (I got a dinosaur-themed wastebasket from the kids' décor section and I adore it)
Taking a new route to get to a place you go to often
Eat dessert first
Celebrate well, and often
Collect things that are "odd" or don't seem like an "acceptable" thing to collect (somebody on my "for you" page collects dandelion crayola crayons and it was so cool!!!!!!)
Incorporate one new piece in an outfit you wear frequently (e.g., a new chain, a necklace, ribbons, bracelets, ect.). Challenge yourself to add onto the outfits if you feel up for it.
Sing along to songs without worrying that you sound "good" or your intonation is completely accurate
Read a book from a genre you weren't allowed to read as a kid (comics, thrillers, mysteries, anything!)
Walk without having a specific destination or goal
Pick up a new craft without expecting yourself to master it or to ever be "good" enough. Get your hands messy.
I don't want to shame anybody for not feeling as though they have free will or that they are exempt from exercising it. However, I wanted to give ideas so that you might read this list and find your own ways to express your intrinsic autonomy and will. You deserve to be a person, to feel alive, not just living. That is what our lives are for.
Depuis hier j'ai une obsession naissante pour les vidéos/chansons de feldup et je suis en train de développer un crush MONUMENTAL comme quoi mon coeur restera jamais vide bien longtemps.
C'est fou comment j'ai l'impression que la vie m'aide de manière inattendue à chaque fois que je vais mal pour combler mon manque et me faire oublier mes problèmes. La dernière fois c'était avec Good Omens, encore avant avec les Beatles et encore encore avant Sherlock BBC.
Ma vie entière se résume à obsess over un truc bien spécifique pendant 1 semaine à 3 mois et après passer à autre chose comme si rien ne s'était passé. Je sais pas si c'est normal, si c'est un symptôme de quelque chose ou même si c'est bon ou mauvais pour la santé, mais j'aime bien. Ça me donne une petite zone de confort, une bulle où je peux me réfugier pendant un temps et ça me rend heureux et c'est cool.
J'ai beaucoup trop dit de trucs. Je suis pas là pour le faire. Mais bref. J'aime tellement internet :')
Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".
Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"
And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".
Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.
At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.
So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!
Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!
Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!
Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.
i think one of the coolest things about dan howell is the example he sets of how your life isn’t over at 25, and one person won’t fix your life but you still can. dan met his actual soulmate at 18 and is only now, in his 30s, finding true and genuine happiness and fulfillment. meeting phil didn’t automatically solve all his problems, although he was clearly a significant part of the motivation to bother doing the work at all. but dan still put in the work himself for YEARS to improve himself and his life and it WORKED. your life isn’t over if you aren’t completely happy and fulfilled and the person you wish you could be in your 20s. putting in the work takes time but it is WORTH IT.
love when men cry about body hair bc "it's hygiene" and yet 15% of cis men leave the bathroom without washing their hands at all and an additional 35% only just wet their hands without using soap. that is nearly half of all men. that means statistically you have probably shaken hands with or been in direct contact with one of these people.
love when men say that women "only want money" when it turns out that even in equal-earning homes, women are actually adding caregiver burdens and housework from previous years, whereas men have been expanding leisure time and hobbies. in equal-earning households, men spend an average of 3.5 hours extra in leisure time per week, which is 182 hours per year - a little over a week of paid vacation time that the other partner does not receive. kinda sounds like he wants her money.
love that men have decided women are frail and weak and annoying when we scream in surprise but it turns out it's actually women who are more reliable in an emergency because men need to be convinced to actually take action and respond to the threat. like, actually, for-real: men experience such a strong sense of pride about their pre-supposed abilities that it gets them and their families killed. they are so used to dismissing women that it literally kills them.
love it. told my father this and he said there's lies, damned lies, and statistics. a year ago i tried to get him to evacuate the house during a flash flood. he ignored me and got injured. he has told me, laughing, that he never washes his hands. he has said in the last week that women are just happier when we're cooking or cleaning.
maybe i'm overly nostalgic. but it didn't used to feel so fucking bleak. it used to feel like at least a little shameful to consider women to be sheep. it just feels like the earth is round and we are still having conversations about it being flat - except these conversations are about the most obvious forms of patriarchy. like, we know about this stuff. we've known since well before the 50's.
recently andrew tate tried to justify cheating on his partner as being the "male prerogative." i don't know what the prerogative for the rest of us would be. just sitting at home, watching the slow erosion of our humanity.
Being the only disabled person in a friend group is like. Argues against mental age for 30 minutes without achieving anything because they will die if they cant call developmentally disabled adults 6 year olds. Feel guilty for cancelling plans for disability reasons and making up a lie so you dont have to tell the truth. Get called a cripple after explaining your symptoms. Get told nothing is ever the doctors fault because they work soooo hard and you're just not persistent enough. Realize the only way theyd ever do even minor caregiving tasks for you is if they were paid. Spend an hour arguing against eugenics. Listen to someone talk about a group of disabled people and with every sentence it gets more obvious they never interacted with anyone from this group personally. Get compared to peoples elderly relatives. Get -
I don't give a damn about men's mental health since little girls are offing themselves because boys post deep fakes of them and post their naked pics online. I really could not care less about male mental health when they destroy ours daily.
Publishing has always been a fucking nightmare, but now it’s a layer of hell. It’s not enough that writers be good at what they do. Writers have to maintain an active social media presence and cultivate a following. Be available.
They have to be conventionally attractive enough to look good enough to see on a screen, aesthetically pleasing, kind, funny, up-to-date on trends, socially aware but not so controversial that they turn off a brand from California from slapping their discount code on a video promoting a book.
They have to do all of this with no media training, with little help from the companies that are supposed to be doing this for them.
Of course, a lot of this isn't possible for say, the 40-something mother of two who teaches English at a school and writes on the side. She’s boxed out of an already complex industry that already has enough walls.
On some level, I think authors have always marketed themselves a little, but we’ve reached such a crazy point where we’re demanding the author become the influencer. Accessibility in publishing has narrowed from an inch to a sliver. And that inch was hard enough to get in as is.