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starfxckersinc · 4 years

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You don't have to answer this if you don't want to but what's up with the Courtney Love controversy? Why are people accusing her of manipulation or whatever? I'm totally new to this discussion

hey darling!! no worries, I love discussing Kurt & Court bc theyre my surrogate parents and they emotionally raised me when I had a difficult relationship w my Mom and Dad, plus I’m named after Kurt and he’s part of the reason I realized my ~gender~, so needless to say I have a surplus of information on them. Plus their music fucks. anyways, this is gonna be a masterpost-

my credentials(sources I have taken my information and formed my opinion on Kurt & Court’s relationship from if u need to look into them):

-Heavier Than Heaven(Book by Charles Cross, authorized by Kurt’s estate. Charles Cross is a well known grunge/music historian and has literally devoted his life to researching and writing rockstar biographies, including several on Nirvana. One of my favorite books ever.)

- Montage Of Heck(Documentary on Kurt’s life. Produced by his daughter, Frances. I have some heavy criticisms of this film and of the interviews in it, but it does have some reflections on Kurt and Courtney’s relationship that I think are important.)

- Hit So Hard(a documentary on Hole’s drummer, Patty Schemel. Minor discussions of Kurt and Kurt and Courtney.)

- Verse Chorus Verse(Fan-made documentary series on Kurt’s life, widely regarded by Nirvana fans the most in depth play-by-play biography that exists- and it’s free on YouTube, which is lit.)

sources I don’t pull from, but many younger Nirvana fans do(the people who buy into the conspiracies generally):

Kurt and Courtney- A documentary made in the late 90’s under the guise of biography, but is actually about the conspiracy theory that Courtney killed Kurt. I saw it when I was a new fan and I literally laughed out loud from how apeshit it was.

Soaked In Bleach- ‘Biopic’ about Courtney killing Kurt. I haven’t seen it but straight men who think Courtney is ugly take it more seriously than the Bible. Very little truth ever goes into these theories, besides maybe names and dates.

Anything Hank Harrison(Courtney’s father) has to say- He wrote a book on the subject. He also gave her acid and lost custody of her when she was three years old. He’s a shit parent and I doubt he’s actually seen his daughter since the 80’s.

Anything Buzz Osborne(Kurt’s friend, singer for the Melvins, a band Kurt looked up to in Montesano) says- I think Buzz’s opinion is taken way too seriously by a lot of the fan base, I read an interview of his criticizing Montage Of Heck because Kurt ‘didn’t really have a stomach disease’ and was just lying about it to get high, and also about how he hated having to see Courtney naked, and made a good long point about how disgusting her body is. IOn top of all that(none of which really has to do with critiquing the film...?), he mocked Kurt and called him a loser for committing suicide. I don’t care what your opinion on his stomach, his wife, or his music is, that shit is callous and idiotic, but totally reflective of the 70’s and 80’s mentality regarding the mentally ill. He’s part of the legion of pretentious punk dudes who *kind of* knew Kurt, who think Courtney’s the one who ‘corrupted’ him, which brings me around to answering your question.

So, there’s this idea regarding Kurt and Courtney’s relationship, which is pretty similar to the one surrounding Sid and Nancy’s(or at least used to.) Courtney is the whiny, annoying, petulant bitch who attached herself to the first trophy she could find, and through her terrible manipulative personality kept him with her and kept him from getting better. In this mode of thinking, She’s also the person who ‘started’ him on drugs, and in a few people’s eyes, the person who ‘forced’ him to have Frances.

The reality of the situation, as I see it, as someone who’s gone to pretty decent lengths to inform themselves on the subject, is that Kurt and Courtney’s relationship was toxic: But the toxicity was mutual. This doesn’t mean they were a “problematic” couple, or that they were abusing each other, or even that either one of them was ‘evil’, it means that they fell deeply in love as young trauma survivors with substance abuse issues and huge ambitions. That’s a lot to put on any relationship and it’s a lot to talk about, so I’m gonna split this into categories of complaints that you’ll hear pretty routinely as a new Nirvana/Hole fan.

1. “She got him into drugs!”

Courtney started on heroin in the late 80’s in L.A., when she was still playing with Sugar Baby Doll(her band with Jennifer Finch and Kat Bjelland). Kurt, as said in Heavier Than Heaven, tried heroin for the first time around 1988-1989(I don’t remember exactly.) At the time, he was still living with(though I don’t believe they were still dating) Tracy Marander. Because he was destitute, he didn’t have enough money to start forming an actual habit until Nevermind started gaining speed, and by the time he and Courtney started dating(they met a couple of times and phoned a couple of times before cementing a relationship) he had been taking it for a while. That’s the thing I think people look over when it comes to Kurt- He was embarrassed about his addiction and he hated the physical side effects, but he loved heroin.

Courtney says in Montage Of Heck that she had both tried and kicked heroin by the time she met Kurt, but I think the Heavier Than Heaven description is probably more accurate: That she did heroin socially, and her addiction worsened after the two of them began living together because Kurt was(in her own words) ‘obsessed with oblivion.’ She also said in Montage Of Heck that his dream was to ‘Get to three million dollars and become a junkie.’ She’s stated several times that her drug problems came out of a need for ‘comfort’, and Kurt was into getting so fucked he couldn’t do anything else(also confirmed by his friend, Dylan Carlson, who was also into heroin and did it with him often.)

On top of that, Courtney was the one who orchestrated interventions for Kurt, went through the process of reviving him when he’d overdosed, and broke his syringes/scared off his dealers to try and keep drugs away from him as much as possible. At one point, she even made a rule that no drugs were to be done in the house- So he started renting motel rooms and doing them there. It was she who was the head of his final intervention before he went missing.

If anything, Courtney is the person who tried her hardest to keep drugs away from both of them. Considering how much people still talk about her doing heroin while pregnant(which occurred very early on before she was aware of her condition), Kurt is the person who struggled the most to stay off drugs during her pregnancy and after Frances’ birth, even going so far as to hide in the bathroom from her while she was struggling with morning sickness so she wouldn’t know he was getting high.

2. “She manipulated him into dating her/marrying her!”

Here’s the thing about Courtney; She is an enigmatic, entertaining, talented, maternal individual. Here’s the thing about Kurt; He’s a shy, quiet, non-confrontational guy with mommy issues. There’s been a lot of discussion on how Courtney was ‘obsessed’ with Kurt, and how she wouldn’t rest until she pinned him down: That’s untrue, or at least it reads less like crazy-bitch-steals-rock-god and more like cute-singer-has-crush-on-fellow-cute-singer. She was really into him, but when she met him she was still dating Billy Corgan, which deterred her from pursuing him until that relationship(basically) dissolved. When Kurt met her, he had just gotten out of a relationship with Tobi Vail, which most likely fell apart because she refused to be what Tracy Marander had been for him. She wasn’t interested in caring for him and she wasn’t interested in a full-time monogamous relationship. She was working too hard at her own career and was way too involved in the burgeoning riot grrrl movement to worry about looking after Kurt Cobain. That just wasn’t going to work for him.

Kurt was a big believer in the nuclear family model, he was very monogamous, and besides that he lacked the ability to physically take care of himself. If he wasn’t living with a partner who would clean up the house and remind him to wash his hair, it just didn’t happen. He was chronically ill, depressed, and he’d spent most of his adolescence AWOL from anyone who would actually raise him, so Tobi’s rejection deeply hurt him for a number of reasons- While Courtney, the opposite of Tobi in a few key ways, was exactly what he wanted. On top of looking like the archetypical punk girl, “I was attracted to her because she looked like Nancy Spungen,” she had a maternal streak (In Montage Of Heck, when he’s found sitting beside her while she cuts his hair, and, typical for people living with Kurt, mentions that she cleans the house because ‘nobody else fuckin does.’) Early on in their relationship, Kurt had a meltdown and begged Courtney to come to his apartment. She did, and looked after him the rest of the night, a pattern which would become common for them, and was stated by her half sister to be the ‘original strain on the relationship.’

Besides her mothering elements, Courtney was brassy and loud, and her presence allowed him to be less introverted and freer with himself. She was an ambitious young musician who shared a similar childhood to him, and had the same yearning for a safe home life that he did. She was well-read and artistic, and introduced him to the literary side of music creation, which he hadn’t explored yet. After spending a night on the phone with her, he went around telling everybody she was ‘the coolest girl in the world,’ and broke off another burgeoning relationship with Mary Lou Lord on live TV after spending the night with her. The famous quote, “Courtney Love is the best fuck in the world.” is in fact real. And yeah, he could’ve handled that one better.

The attraction was mutual, and I find it hard to believe that Kurt was ever forced into anything romantic with her based on how well she suited his tastes.

3. “She used him for his fame/money!”

As stated above, Courtney was attracted to Kurt before Nevermind was even recorded, and if she wanted to marry a famous dude right out the gate, at the time they met there were plenty of people who were way more famous than Kurt. In Heavier Than Heaven she mentions really liking their song “Dive,” and later in life she mentioned hearing “Sliver” and being impressed with Kurt’s writing abilities. Both of those songs were released a solid two years before Nevermind. She was interested in Kurt because he was cute and talented and she was savvy in the music scene, meaning that she kept up with underground bands.

Now, a point of contention between Kurt & Courtney was their different attitudes towards fame. That is entirely true. Courtney wanted to be famous, enjoyed celebrity, loved attention, and could handle touring, press, and the craziness of success. She was very charismatic, very physically strong, and let’s face it, definitely an attention whore. Kurt liked being praised, he liked being successful, and he definitely had a thing for attention- But he hated pressure, he had inferiority issues, he didn’t know how to handle his life being pried into all the time, and he wasn’t strong enough to do massive tours. Courtney just didn’t understand that, which is pretty common if someone doesn’t share your same mental illness/physical illness: Touring hurt Kurt’s stomach, it worsened his anxiety and emotional instability, it wore his body out, it didn’t agree with him. He loved playing live but couldn’t handle the mania or the travelling, meaning he didn’t mind blowing off huge tours that would bring in loads of money. Courtney, who did feel envious and intimidated regarding his success, would get angry at him for that- She didn’t want him to blow off massive paychecks and press coverage because it’s not what she would’ve done. I definitely side with Kurt on this, nothing is more frightening and frustrating than people trying to force you to do things you can’t handle health-wise. Courtney, being naturally business-oriented, was also aware of how things appeared to the public, and definitely cared about their image more than Kurt did- One of their fights revolved around her nagging him about how important the “Heart-Shaped Box” music video would be for him, and how he should look good. He reacted by stubbing out a cigarette on his forehead and saying, “Do I look fucking good enough for you now?”

So yeah, Courtney, like a lot of people in Kurt’s life, was all about furthering his career and success. A lot of people read that as her being money-hungry or manipulative, in my opinion it’s just a natural response from a person who’s spent their whole life trying to be a success and wouldn’t really get there until 1994. I think some of it was envy and I think some of it was her using him a little vicariously, neither of which are healthy but neither of which are malicious, either. She wanted to be a rockstar, she was ready to be a rockstar, she wasn’t; He thought he’d wanted to be a rockstar, he didn’t really want to, he was.

4. “She emotionally abused him!”

I hate to say this because I love Kurt so much but, as someone who’s been through a codependent relationship where they were bailing water out of a sinking boat, Kurt’s behavior throughout their marriage set off way more red flags for me than Courtney’s did. I don’t think he was actually abusive, but I do think he was a little too underdeveloped and unresolved to be married to someone. He had to grow up slower than everyone else because he missed out on having concrete mature influences, which Courtney did as well, and like I said earlier I think a lot of their problems came through a lack of adult communication skills. Both of them were really jealous people: Courtney couldn’t stand Kurt talking about Mary Lou Lord or Tobi Vail, Kurt was completely convinced that Courtney was cheating on him with Billy Corgan(even going so far as to talk to their lawyer about a divorce shortly before he died.) This was the catalyst for a lot of mind games and unnecessary drama, especially coming from Kurt.

Kurt couldn’t handle conflict. He was really passive aggressive, and would do things to purposely piss Courtney off or communicate to her that he was displeased. While she was trying to stay clean he would declare that he was going to do drugs in the apartment, when she started talking to a psychic to help her with her problems he mocked her and put her down, when she staged his final intervention his entire argument against rehab was that she was just as ‘fucked up’ as he was(she had already agreed to go into rehab, though whether he was aware of this or not I’m not sure.) He made his first suicide attempt by overdosing on Rohypnol on their wedding anniversary because she took some pills and fell asleep and he decided that meant she wasn’t interested in him anymore. I’m not arguing that that’s an irrational response to your partner getting stoned and falling asleep, especially when he’d apparently set the night up to be as romantic as possible, but the overdose put him in a coma and sent Courtney into hysterics.

Her mental health began to decline due to paranoia that he’d end up dead, and her weight dropped due to the added stress. As someone who’s been through a pretty similar situation to that and exhibited the same symptoms, I can tell you that it is never okay to use a suicide attempt to deal with a perceived injustice from your partner. By this time, Kurt was facing either getting clean or dying, and his behavior was very depressed and erratic, so there are explanations for the way he was acting and I don’t think he was trying to manipulate her with a threat. Despite my understanding of that, there is nothing more exhausting than being the caretaker of someone who is hellbent on never getting better. I can’t imagine being the caretaker of someone who won’t stop until they’re dead, and I do think at that point it would’ve been better for them to separate.

But that isn’t to say Courtney wasn’t toxic herself, I’m not trying to paint a wholly negative image of Kurt here. I’m merely trying to stand in the way of Nirvana fanboys who have no grasp on the more sickly sides of his personality, and give Court a bit of a break. Definitely, she struggled with her jealousy: As stated, she never wanted his ex girlfriends mentioned around her and would tear them apart if they were. She was ambitious and career driven, which eroded a lot of her platonic relationships/working relationships as well her marriage to Kurt. She was one of the people who was pushing him to recover in time to play Lollapalooza, and she was one of the people who pushed him into his last stunted tour before his death. She weaponized his relationship with Frances in ways that I and most people agree are gross: She told him he should be playing massive gigs to support his daughter(though their medical and legal bills were big they were hardly poverty stricken), and admitted in an interview later that she called him in rehab once to tell him he’d dropped Frances on her head(She mentioned during this that Frances was wearing a furry hood, and that he didn’t hurt her. In my opinion he was doing his best by even trying rehab again, and that he was already so worried that he was a terrible father that it was just cruel to make him feel worse.)

She has a tendency to be self-obsessed, and to put her own self interest before people she cares about, even if she regrets it later. She struggles herself with mental illness and addiction, both of which tend to give a person poor judgment regarding the people they care about.

Once again, Courtney and Kurt weren’t a healthy couple, but it wasn’t because they were evil or abusive towards one another. They cared for each other deeply, they had a very pure devotion. Underlying all this nastiness were two people who prayed together, wrote together, fantasized about a Valentine’s Day wedding, and faxed each other R-rated love letters like modern versions of James Joyce and Nora Barnacle. During one of his more successful stints in rehab, Kurt wrote Courtney love letters every night(though he did decorate them with blood, wax, and semen.)

They had some serious therapy they needed to attend, the both of them. But 90% of these demonizations of Courtney are either untrue or blown out of proportion.

#aberdeen spoken word #ik this runs on so much but i love talking abt this shit and i didnt #want to spend tomorrow editing bc i have other shit i need to do so #have a basically unedited essay on my parents fndndfn

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byteswiped-blog · 5 years

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( jack kilmer. 24. male. he/him ) — i just saw ( ulysses hall ) walking past plaça de catalunya. they are a ( “programmer”/con artist ) from ( salem, massachusetts ). people say that their ( pragmatic, logical + levelheaded ) personality is admirable but their ( compulsive, detached + circumspect ) side lets them down — the theme song of their life must be ( j'ouvert ) by ( brockhampton ). [ penned by jules, 19, pst, he/him ]

hey y’all! i’m jules, and i’m gonna put a little sparknotes on my boy below the cut, but for some basic info on ulysses head here for stats + stuff! feel free to message me here to plot, or hit the heart and i’ll message you, but your best bet to reach me is on dis /// cord at jules#6504 !!

ulysses was born in salem, mass., into deep poverty. his parents struggled with mental illness and addiction throughout his childhood, and he ended up acting as the parental figure for his two younger sisters

he was a pretty serious, quiet and frail kid, and only came out of his shell with his childhood friends, chris and nix. they got into some trouble growing up, but spent most of their time in a clubhouse together, finding refuge in each other’s company

things started to change in high school when chris and phoenix started dating, and ulysses became the odd one out — he had a terrible crush on nix, and it was pretty painful watching them be all lovey-dovey, so he started to pull away from his friends

instead, he threw himself into computers. he found out he had a real knack for them, building computers from parts he found on the cheap, getting a part-time job at a little computer repair shop in town, and got good at it

things got a lot worse at home then, too — the hall family had lived in a trailer growing up, but they lost the trailer when ulysses was about 16, and ended up homeless for a few months. his dad couch surfed while his mom and the kids lived out of their broken-down station wagon before they got into a housing project. ulysses hated feeling so desperate and helpless, feeling like he was failing his sisters by not taking care of them despite being a child himself, and it ignited a drive in him to take care of the people he loved at any cost

ulysses ended up graduating early, wanting to leave town and go make something of himself. he ended up getting into a pretty bad blow-up fight with chris when he left, with her and nix feeling like he was abandoning them (and in a way, he kind of was)

he ended up moving to cali and getting a compsci degree. a couple things of note happened while he was out west: he met a guy who’d end up being a long-term boyfriend (andre, from santa monica, kind of boring but rich and sweet), and he started getting sick

he’d always been a frail and sickly kid, but he started getting really sick in college. he wasn’t taking care of himself as well as he had, and the stress took its toll. he started passing out, sleeping much, much more, etc., and not longer after graduating, he ended up in the hospital

one hospital visit turned to two, then three, then they started extending as he got sicker and sicker. he was initially diagnosed with iron-deficient anemia, but when they put him on supplements, he got worse. he ended up needing several blood transfusions, which caused a near-fatal buildup of iron in his body, ending with his spleen needing to be removed

he was eventually diagnosed with thalassemia, and when they figured out how to treat him, he recovered quickly, but by then he was in deep, deep medical debt — even with a good, stable silicon valley job, he was barely staying afloat, and couldn’t send money back to his sisters, which was the whole point

chris and nix ended up visiting him, and by then, they were running their own cons. ulysses asked to join them, seeing the money they were making, realizing he could pay off his medical debts and start saving for his sisters to go to college if he worked with them

they’ve been travelling since, running cons and scamming wealthy people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. since reuniting, the three of them have begun a polyamorous relationship, though loosely defined between them

i think? that’s it? though if you have any questions or anything definitely ask! i have to get ready for work so i can’t do much more but i’ll put up a wanted connections page as soon as i can! i can’t wait to get a chance to write w y’all uwu so def message me/like this/something so we can plot!!!

#— out of character.#hqbarcelona.intro

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silenthillmutual · 5 years

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okay. warning for negative bc this is kind of a vent post?

so. i’m still working on unlearning a lot of things that i had kinda drilled into my head with my mom that i did not realize were bad until recently? or things that i could not easily voice were having negative effects on me until recently. and i’m kind of thinking about how my mom is very. hhhhhhhh.

my mom does not have a life outside of work. and not like, “oh she’s very dedicated to her career” sort of way. but like, she does not believe in taking time off. and i think in the way our capitalist environment functions that always comes off sounding very admirable. it’s not.

because what that equates to is like, she works to avoid other things in her life. she says that she can’t afford to take a break or any time to herself and my best friend and i had told her repeatedly that if she really wants a relationship she is going to have to take time to devote to that which means working less if only by a little bit! and that i have told her that she should take time to herself to relax whether she had a relationship or not because it’s not healthy to obsess over work the way that she does.

and. i guess she does a bit now. i saw recently on her fb that she went to colonial beach w her boyfriend and like. good for her. but that doesn’t erase that she is constantly harping on me, even from a distance, to do like. everything all in one day. and that i should be working 40+ hours a week and that if i don’t do that, that i’m lazy.

like my mom’s version of workaholism is to view herself as the rule and not the exception, which i can see in certain contexts how that translates into “oh so she’s not full of herself” but it’s actually really the opposite! because i think it takes a special brand of narcissism to assume that everyone is and should be exactly like you and that if they are not they are failing and that is their own fault.

so, my mom has fibro, like on top of all of that and i wonder if she’d feel better if she didn’t constantly push herself into working all the time. and the truth is that she’ll look at any time i spend online regardless of what i’m doing (bc she doesn’t ever care what i’m actually doing on there, to her it’s all the same) as time wasted and an addiction to the internet. and she thinks that everyone else w fibro or w any chronic or mental illness can work exactly as much as she can because if they do anything less they’re being lazy.

and i think you can kinda see why it’s an issue for a licensed therapist to think or feel that way.

so like. i have never pursued any job that says it’s part time, under $10 an hour that wants me to work 39 hours a week (one hour from full time in the commonwealth of va), no benefits, 8 hours every day, retail, with a massive list of responsibilities. because i know that i can’t handle doing 8+ hours which is how much it’ll wind up being if they want me to open/close (taking into consideration traffic and people who just will not fucking leave), like i had to struggle to work 8 hours at a job i actually LIKED without thinking of working at fucking target or some shit for 8+ hours a day. i can’t do it. between the anxiety and the autism that sounds like something that will make me absolutely want to die and i know this because i tried that at party city for three days and came home in tears every single day and my feet hurt so bad i couldn’t move.

and my mom’s response to that was like. just deal with it! just push through it! you have to!

you’d think a therapist with a chronic illness would be more compassionate than that.

but my mom’s whole life is focused on work and i don’t even think it’s because she just loves her job that much. she just refuses to do anything outside of it. she has a dog and a cat (MY cat I adopted her she is under MY legal name and that dog is basically my dog, he was my baby) that i was under no circumstances allowed to take with me regardless of where i went or when, but that she does not...enjoy. at all. she is constantly bitching about the pets and she bought an automatic feeder and self-scooping litterbox and hired pet sitters not for the occasional trip out to her boyfriend’s but for like a regular thing because she is at home as little as possible. every single second that she can spend at work she will.

and she hated that i didn’t spend 6-8 hours at work (more counting traffic) and then want to spend all of my free time looking for a second or different job and cleaning the house and cooking all the meals and running all the errands and taking care of the pets. with no help.

and that’s part of what i mean about her working to get out of having to do other things. because she also works so much so that she can get out of eating. like. ever. her body image issues are so fucked up that she will eat one meal a day and be like “ugh i’m such a pig i’m so fat i should stop eating maybe then i’ll lose weight”. and then she’ll deny that she he has an unhealthy relationship to food and claim she just “doesn’t have time to eat” even though she apparently has time to bitch at me over facebook or henpeck her boyfriend and read 8 different versions of her horoscope in an hour + longer breaks

like i’m sorry but if i could eat in 30 minutes with my coworker calling me to panic on the other end bc everyone decides to come into the library at the same fucking time then i think maybe. just maybe. you can eat a goddamn granola bar in 2+ hours while sitting at your desk instead of saying “i should be writing notes” and not actually writing your fucking notes!

what really kinda. bothers me all about it. like in addition to all this super unhealthy stuff that makes her occupation as a therapist hypocritical as hell is how she criticizes me for doing the exact shit that she does.

by which i mean. holding other people to my standards.

i’ve worked a lot at not being judgmental of other people and challenging my own notions of what is right and acceptable when i find myself judging other people. it’s really hard. i think it’s connected a lot to being autistic and the kind of biases that we’re all brought up into and it’s why travelling and secondary education are really important, not even just because of learning aspect (although liberal arts forcing you to take classes outside of your comfort zone. i think helps a lot in this too) but because meeting people from all different kinds of backgrounds makes you look at things from different angles you wouldn’t have otherwise, because if you never leave you never broaden your horizons.

so when there are still standards that i hold people to it’s. i try to just hold people to “not being a total asshole to everyone around you” as a relatively basic standard that i don’t think should be controversial? but even when i voice that opinion - like, literally, i went to richmond cc with two friends and when i got back i was telling my mom about this guy who was very loudly, specifically so that i could hear his unsolicited opinion of my cosplay, talking about how bad/boring jojo was because he knew i was dressed as someone from jojo and he wanted me and everyone else around him to know his opinion of jojo, then went and started mocking his friend for wanting to buy a gba instead of a gameboy sp bc his friend and i both saw the mother 1+2 and mother 3 cartridges and was just being an asshole! again! and i was just complaining to her after the fact about this guy being a dick and my mom’s response, not even like an “i don’t get it but i’m sorry” first was just

“well maybe he’s autistic”

and! i’m sorry! but that! doesn’t fuckign fly with me! i said “so am i that doesn’t mean i go around being an asshole to everyone at con”

and she was like “well maybe he’s not as high-functioning as you you can’t hold everyone to your standards”

NO! NO MAYBE HE WAS BEING AN ASSHOLE BECAUSE HE’S CIS WHITE GUY AND THINKS EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW HIS OPINIONS! do you know how many fucking people go to con are autistic????? a whole shit ton of us! do you know how many poc, trans, nb, not-straight people loudly voice their opinions to make the people around them including their friends feel like shit? NONE OF THEM! NONE OF THEM! NONE OF THEM! ONLY THE CISHET WHITE GUYS WHO THINK THEY’RE TOO GOOD FOR COSPLAY FUCKING DO THAT!

and it’s so irritating! like i’m not allowed to talk about my autism EVER and even when my standards are REALLY FUCKIGN LOW i’m being too judgmental of others but she’s allowed to talk about how everyone who doesn’t work 40+ hours every week and starve themselves is fucking?? lazy????

unreal. un fuckign believable.

#nori talks #nori's adventures in moving out

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littlebabycrybtch · 3 years

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ok ik bitches are still going to complain but i gotta rant to keep my shit together;;; ngl after being stuck co-raising two babies now i really feel genuinely Disgusted by unnecessary parent critique. like it actually makes me feel so viscerally upset and depressed when i remember nobody gets this or cares to and probably just wants to call out what im doing wrong, instead of lend me a hand to do it better. man im not treading lightly here the ‘no excuses’ mentality is literally Inhumane to parents and dehumanizes them as these superhumans, they arent, they are people trying to take care of themselves Plus One. there Are ‘excuses’ for not being perfect. just bc every child deserves perfect doesnt mean it can be given and that fucking SUCKS but that is one of the only times im comfortable saying; ‘thats just life’. you cant magically make life better for kids the way you think, you’re not a protector, you’re their Rock to teach them How to DEAL with what life brings, that means you’re allowed to struggle with it too. childcare is like this cosmic design to work you physically and mentally to the brink, fucking forget the normalization of how many people you think you’ve seen raise kids and done fine, it is harder than you can even fathom. they probably did not do fine behind closed doors. the parents with the best behaved and most obedient kids probably did harmful things to make them that way that will eventually come back to them, the parents with the happiest most well adjusted kids probably had the money to provide the extra care for that. there are ‘excuses’. idc if it fucking annoys you or w/e, i dont like being the bitch that says stuff nobody wants to hear, but you truly deeply cannot 100% understand unless you are raising kids, i dont say that to hurt your feewings or exclude you, i used to think that way, i say it bc when you see me passed out on the couch while my nephew gets into something dangerous, its because i got one hour of sleep that night while he kicked me in our bed for 4 hours. he cant help not knowing how that affects both of us, but i cant help being affected by it just cuz im supposed to be ~the big strong adult~, bc i am not a fucking xman. i CANT pretend it all away. while im sitting there napping im also waiting for my mental health meds to start working. im also dizzy from not eating. it sucks that he gets into shit sometimes. hes still gonna get into shit sometimes, and i can do my best, but if i sit here worrying that karens are gonna get pissed abt that and work myself even harder im gonna straight up explode. who does that help. who does me falling apart help. come babysit my kid for free if you wanna help me bitch!

parents are doing twice the work of a normal person while also teaching one of these people theyre caring for, how to BE a person. i used to be SO pro judging parents and im literally nauseated by the judgments now. “i cant believe this parent looked away and their kid got hurt, i cant beleive they just leave them there with a tablet or a snack or a toy while they nap, i cant believe they let them do that, i cant believe--” btich you literally have no idea how lucky you are that they are not both already dead. you are so lucky tehy are both alive and the parent isnt hospitalized for mental health or even physical exhaustion, or addicted to a stimulant (which includes caffeine), or using smth to relax like weed or alcohol (hello wine mom culture), or the kid isnt traumatized from watching their parent have repeatd breakdowns. that is literally better than most situations already. no matter how impossibly perfect the family could be in your mind, kids fuckin get hurt and they make mistakes and the PARENTS make mistakes bc theyre PEOPLE and yall this blows my mind that ppl dont realize this but,,,,, Little kids??? THEY DO NOT LISTEN TO THEIR PARENTS bc they essentially CANT..... for like YEARS there is a period they WILL NOT LISTEN TO YOU at ALL while they have the full autonomy and smarts and strength to cause horrible consequential problems, they are capable of learning how to circumnavigate your ‘babyproofing’ in new ways every single day, but they have ZEROOOOO MORALS OR CAUSE AND EFFECT SKILLS to understand RIGHT FROM WRONG, NO MATTER HOW OFTEN YOU TELL THEM!!!!! IT WONT CHANGE, ITS LITERALLY A PHYSICAL BRAIN THING THAT THEY CANT LEARN WHAT ‘NO’ MEANS FOR A WHILE YET!!! THIS CAN LAST FROM AGE 1 TO 4, SOMETIMES LONGER! THATS GENUINELY INSANITY INDUCING FOR THE ADULT WHOS KEEPING THEM IN LINE HUNDREDS OF TIMES A DAY, KNOWING ITS AMOUNTING TO ALMOST NOTHING UNTIL YEARS LATER!!!! IT DOESNT HELP WHEN PPL JUDGE YOU AND DONT BELEIVE YOU AND THINK YOU JUST ARENT ~TRYING HARD ENOUGH~! holy FUCK dude, idc if you wanna judge, im losing it bc i am being forced to keep my cool while a child whos pinching me and genuinely HURTING and BRUISING me laughs in my face bc he truly DOES NOT KNOW this, and there is NO WAY for me to convey it to make him stop at the moment!!!! thats maddening!!!

listen to me, neither of you dying or experiencing lasting damage is literally the goal every day, not just ‘raising them’, but that you both survive to the end of it. im appalled by how different the lifestyle is and the way ppl just... dont know that/REJECT that information so they get to judge. ofc tiny vulnerable innocent kids deserve the best, parents cannot always provide that if they want to Survive, bc they also deserve , basic understanding and humanity. you call out abuse all you want, theres a difference between the 'lesser of two evils’ choices, or even the genuinely Bad choices you can Accidentally make when at your wits end (which you should immediately correct anyways), and ever causing intentional physical or mental harm to the child, but the secodn yall start nitpicking or blatantly being ignorant to a struggle just so you get your blame validation in i literally cannot AFFORD to give you the time of day, im busy running on minutes of sleep, so if you think i have enough free time to entertain ur whining that my kids got a messy face and has been on his tablet in a highchair for an hour or w/e, idc, im using that time to shower for the first time in 2 weeks bc nobody else is gonna be there for me to let me do that shit :) so frankly put your money where your mouth is and help struggling parents whenever you can. i cant make shit better out of thin air.

“oh, but i dont have the money to help you.” YOU THINK IM AFFORDING CHILDCARE?? YOU CAN COME OVER AND HELP DIRECTLY WHILE I DO CHORES. “oh, but i dont wanna babysit for my friends, i dont like kids.” OH REALLY?????? OH YOU DONT LIKE KIDS??? BC THEYRE DIFFICULT MAYBE ??? SO MAYBE YOU SHOULDNT JUDGE WHEN ITS HARD THEN????? LIKE YOU RLY THINK JUST ‘LIKING THEM’ SUDDENLY MAKES IT EASY FOR ME?? YOU THINK ME FINDING MY NEPHEW CUTE AND LOVING HIM AND HIS LAUGHTER GIVES ME FUCKING SUPERMAN POWERS TO DEAL WITH THIS???????? “but You chose to have kids” rt in my case i literally didnt and would be homeless if not offering to help care for them but HEY COOL CONCEPT PRO CHOICE KINDA FUCKIN INCLUDES WHEN PEOPLE ‘CHOOSE’ TO HAVE KIDS EVEN WHEN THEY STRUGGLE AFTER, TOO LATE TO FUCKIN COMPLAIN NOW, JUST HELP A BITCH OUT. LIke... bro BRO b R O im losing it stop giving parents the inspiration porn treatment while disrespecting the actual struggles they go thru any time the child actually suffers bc they are unable to shield them from their struggle. can i be real, life literally will not go without struggle. you cannot raise them to have a life better than what the world is, you can do your best but you really cant MAKE it fair. once again this is not a ‘raise the perfect child’ contest you are just . trying to raise them at all. its messy. every single day you will have successes and failures, and you’ll be running on empty, and you’ll be doing that just to make it through to do it again tomorrow, while it slowly (AGONIZINGLY SLOWLY) gets easier each day. im tired of pretending lmao i dont wanna hear you bitches judge parents anymore, i dont wanna hear the stupid ass ‘im allowed to’ shit anymore dude!!!!! for gods sake i can agree with you when some shits just plain wrong but ill never apologize for standing up for myself or other struggling parents even if it makes you uncomfy, i can care about Both the child and the parent at the same time, ig i wont ask you why you seemingly cant. 😶 ESPECIALLY when things like classism and ableism tie in so often with these situations. not to mention racism like im white but hoooo if i hear one more story about a black parents ‘negligence’ in efforts of just trying to help their family, like leaving their kids somewhere during a job interview or w/e, vs the white parents that LET THEIR 10 YR OLDS WANDER AROUND MALLS BY THEMSELVES... im gonna scream. im gonna fuckin scream. its so unfair. fuck off, stop the spiteful ignorance, change this shitty hateful culture.

tldr; you Can care about kids while respecting parents, even when they arent perfect. you can advocate for children while also advocating for parents, and in fact, you should fucking try.

#vent/ //#might delete later ///#ok to rb but. i swear to god if this pops off and ppl whine...... literally L I T ER A LL Y come take care of my kids #NO BETTER YET BC ITS ACTUALLY FEASIBLE!! FOR EVERY COMPLAINT. 5 DOLLARS IN MY PAYPAL #SO I CAN AFFORD DAYCARE. LITERALLY IF OYU CLAIM ANY STUPID SHIT BC I ADMIT ITS HARD TO CARE FOR SMALL KIDS #U HAVE NO EXCUSE TO NOT PUT THAT FAKE BITCHY JUDGY CONCERN INTO ACTUAL RESULTS. THANKX #anyways on a real note again this is a vent moreso than a disc horse post thats meant to be shared around so #its not perfect its just. my feelings over the past couple years dealing w this man #really fuckin tired of it i really spent so many years 100% on the side of 'i have critical understanding i get to judge'#no i didnt. no you dont. its not comprehensible till you're pushed to your own limit with childcare. i hate being that btich #cuz nobody wants to hear it. but its the truth swallow it #long post //

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cutsliceddiced · 4 years

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New top story from Time: Constance Woodson Worked Hard All Her Life. How Did She End Up Homeless During a Pandemic?

A few days after her 60th birthday, Constance Woodson took in the early-June sun on a bench in New York City’s Madison Square Park. Masked, except when she sipped her coffee, she reflected on her luck. The good news was that, in the midst of a pandemic, she had secured a job, as a contact tracer. She could do it from her home, with a company-issued laptop and headset. The bad news was that her current home was a room in a hotel–provided by New York City’s Department of Homeless Services (DHS)–where, she was informed, laptops were not permitted and wi-fi was not provided. Woodson had finally found a job that might get her out of her long struggle with homelessness, but she couldn’t do it, because she was homeless.

The DHS caseworkers at the Best Western Bowery Hanbee eventually told her she could bring in the laptop. But there was still the wi-fi issue, and then Woodson would have to figure out how to do a sensitive task with a roommate who liked to watch Disney cartoons day and night with the blinds drawn, and without chairs or lamps. They had been removed, she was told, because the hotel was being sold. “The system is not designed to move you forward,” she says. “I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining, but it’s been heartbreak after heartbreak.”

At last count, in 2019, more than 560,000 Americans were homeless, and 16.5% of them–about 92,000 people–were in New York State. New York City has the highest number of homeless people of any metropolitan area in the U.S., although Washington, D.C., has the highest per capita, and because of New York City’s extensive shelter system, Los Angeles has far more people living on the streets. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), 40% of homeless people are African American, like Woodson.

Homelessness has recently been getting worse, with a 3% increase in the number of homeless people just in the past year. But, says Nan Roman, head of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, “there’s never been anything like this.” One Columbia University analysis of unemployment figures suggested that by the end of 2020, homelessness would increase by 40%. In July, about 44.5 million Americans told the Household Pulse Survey takers at the Census Bureau that they either hadn’t made last month’s mortgage or rent payment on time or doubted they could make the next one. Unless Congress acts, the moratorium on evicting people from most federally subsidized housing will run out at the end of July. “Starting on July 25, 2020, landlords must give 30-day notice before pursuing eviction for nonpayment between March 27, 2020, and July 24, 2020,” says a HUD official. The Aspen Institute estimates that by October, 1 in 5 American renters could face eviction.

The world they will encounter is, to be generous, not very compassionate. Even before the pandemic, Woodson was kept at such distance and treated with such suspicion that she often felt as if she were contagious. In the COVID era, life for unsheltered people has gotten even more desperate. John Sheehan, director of ecumenical outreach services for Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York, who has been working among the homeless community for 40 years and who has known Woodson since 2018, says it’s not just that people have nowhere to go, no bathrooms to use, and fewer places to sleep, it’s that even the few dollars they used to get from passersby have dried up with the lack of foot traffic. “They’ve lost all the connections to the community,” says Sheehan. “I met one of my regular clients, and he said he hadn’t eaten for three days.”

Kholood Eid for TIMEWoodson holds a yoga warrior pose in Central Park on July 16

People end up with nowhere to live for myriad reasons, but there is one constant: it’s much easier to lose a home than to get a new one. Eight years ago, when her mother died after a three-year illness, Woodson discovered the family owed so much money on the home the two of them had lived in with Woodson’s daughter, Joelle, that the bank was repossessing it. Since then, her opportunities for stable housing have flattened like a slowly leaking tire. The experience has upended not only her sense of security but also her self-image. “I do not recognize this person that I have become,” says Woodson, who says at one point she briefly considered suicide. “I keep trying to figure out how I got here, what I did wrong.”

Woodson’s story is not full of dramatic mistakes. She recalls her childhood as middle-class; her father was a musician, and her mom worked in HR at the University of Missouri–Kansas City. It was, she says, “domestically turbulent”; her parents divorced when she was young, and her mother got the house. Woodson has worked most of her life, including seven years in health care administration and 13 as a manicurist at a high-end spa. In 2008, she got a degree in organizational leadership and development from Rockhurst University. With the aid of scholarships, she and her ex-husband put Joelle through Kansas City’s prestigious Pembroke Hill School, and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in New York.

But the foreclosure revealed how precarious her situation really was. By many estimates, homeownership is the most reliable wealth-building vehicle the American economic factory has ever produced. Home equity allows people to get money when they need it, which delivers them from many financial perils. It can also help them to accrue and pass along wealth. Paying off a home, however, requires not only a certain level of income but a reliable one. Otherwise, people can end up worse off than they started. Labor Department figures show that in April, on the heels of the economic shutdown, fewer than half of all African Americans were employed, the lowest rate in four decades.

In the first quarter of 2020, 74% of white people owned their homes, whereas only 44% of Black people did. This is due in part to discriminatory practices over the years that have limited Black people’s access to homes in certain areas and to mortgages, especially those at attractive interest rates. This disparity in ownership is one of the reasons that, in 2016, the median Black household wealth was $13,024 while the median white house-hold had $149,703. The loss of a home, moreover, doesn’t affect just one generation. When RPI closed its dorms for the summer, Joelle took low-paying employment as a camp counselor just to ensure a roof over her head. “What freaks me out is the fragility of everything,” Joelle says. “There’s a very thin line between having a roof and not having a roof.”

As the few jobs following the spa’s closure dried up, Woodson did what most people do when they have to move out and don’t have much money: she moved around from city to city, staying with friends or family, bartering her car for rent, dipping into her savings and petsitting. By 2016, Kansas City no longer felt like home, so she decided to join her daughter in New York. She bought a one-way ticket east, and arrived on the day Joelle graduated.

While she looked for work, Woodson bunked in with Joelle and her three roommates, but she was never able to pay much rent, and after about a year, the situation grew tense. Joelle, 26, paid for so many Airbnbs that she too began to get into financial difficulty. She still gives her mother as much money as she can spare, but she can’t afford a place for them both on her salary. “I worry about my mother every single day,” says Joelle, who works for a communications and marketing agency. “There’s a limit to what you can actually do. You hope there’s some other system that can pick up what you can’t, but there’s actually not.”

Woodson is resourceful, funny and plucky. Sheehan says she’s always advising other participants in his programs on where to find meals or a bed. She’s a client advocate at the Coalition for the Homeless. She gets SNAP food benefits ($194 a month) and keeps her Medicaid up to date, but has never been on welfare. But on March 20, when New York Governor Andrew Cuomo imposed the stay-at-home order, none of that was enough.

First, a church-run shelter Woodson used most Sundays to get a decent sleep (and where I occasionally volunteer) closed. Then the drop-in center where she sometimes scored a chair for the night halved its intake. One of her daughter’s roommates had been in contact with someone who had the virus, so Woodson couldn’t go there. The now deserted streets became an even less safe place for a woman on her own to sleep. Many of the soup kitchens closed, as they figured out how to feed people safely. Woodson, who had always resisted entering a city-run shelter, believing she was better off on her own, finally applied for a place. “I thought, I’m resilient, I’ve been through so much,” she says. “I can just do this for a few months, until I get a job.”

The DHS has helped countless people get off the streets, but Woodson found it to be illsuited to assist someone like her. Those who are the most vulnerable–physically disabled, mentally ill, addicted or formerly incarcerated–have particular programs to assist them with a place to live. Woodson is none of those things. She falls to the bottom of the list for those who need help. “They did a lot of blood tests and psych evaluations,” she says. “They looked at me, and I could tell they didn’t know what to do with me.”

At first, she was assigned to the 200-bed Casa de Cariño in the Bronx, which had just become the first shelter to have a reported case of COVID-19. (The DHS says that as of July 16, it has found 1,358 people living in shelters or on the street with COVID-19; 1,189 of them have recovered, and 103 of them have died.) Terrified, she called Joelle, who called an old friend. He had an apartment in Brooklyn that was waiting for renters who had changed their minds when the virus hit. He let Woodson stay there while it was empty.

Having a place to go to, to cook, to stay allowed Woodson to recall what it was like to be regarded as just a person walking down the street instead of a “street person.” She was not an outcast, not a problem. “It is so much better than I thought,” she said after a few weeks there. “I’m in a neighborhood. There are all sorts of people wandering around. I’m just one of them.”

By the time the landlord needed his apartment, most New York City shelter residents had been moved to hotels. The Best Western seemed clean and safe, but having tasted autonomy, Woodson found the restrictions arbitrary and cruel. The staff were overwhelmed, and she could never get in to see her case manager. She says she even got to envying her room-mate, “perfectly content watching her cartoons and stocking up on snacks.”

Just as she began to sink into despair, a family from one of the churches she went to offered her their apartment; they had moved with their five kids to Texas for the summer. All she now needed was the equipment for her new job, but having no permanent address slowed the delivery, and a month passed before she was actually working. The family’s lease is up at the end of July. As of press time, Woodson was not sure where she would go.

Perhaps if Woodson has made any mistake, it is this: She hoped for too much. She hoped for more than America was prepared to offer a Black woman who has had some run-of-the-mill setbacks. She will not settle for cartoons and free snacks. Woodson doesn’t want to be on welfare, doesn’t want to be in the shelter system, doesn’t want to just pick up jobs here and there. She wants meaningful work, independence and stability. She wants to be the one who can offer her daughter a place to stay during the pandemic.

Shopping for food at her local corner store in the Bronx, she can’t find healthy options. She wants to ask the people there: “Why do you feel like this is what we should settle for?” But she doesn’t. She just takes the long walk to Whole Foods and buys a little less. And she wants a place of her own. “I’m done with the shelter system,” Woodson says. “My plan is never to return.”

When she feels down, Woodson has two antidotes: yoga and the preacher T.D. Jakes, whom she listens to most mornings. “T.D. Jakes talks about mountains,” she says. “You can’t go around them. You have to go over them. My mom made the decision to get a reverse mortgage, and I can’t get around it.” Recently she was listening to a sermon about the beggars at the gates of Jerusalem. “I feel like that’s me,” she says. “I can see the gates, but I can’t quite get through them.”

Despite it all, Woodson retains her positive outlook. She can’t help but notice the kinds of problems she’s been wrestling with for years have emerged in other people’s lives during the pandemic. Suddenly everyone has to play by more rules; everyone is regarded with a little more suspicion; lots of people have limited access to public bathrooms. Suddenly there are many stories of men and women who face great uncertainty, worry about rent, have to think about whether there will be food that day. “People are worried about losing their houses. I know what that feels like,” she says. “It’s not, ‘Look what I’ve gone through. Welcome to my world.’ It’s that I haven’t felt so much like the outsider or the freak. I feel like now, finally, we’re all in this together–and maybe we can have a conversation.”

via https://cutslicedanddiced.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/how-to-prevent-food-from-going-to-waste

#Time #top stories #IFTTT #news

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psychotic-psypport · 7 years

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my dad has done meth my whole life and has constantly disappointed everyone. he went to jail n stuff and was diagnosed with HPD (although I don't think that's accurate) I want to believe he can be better but don't know if I believe he really will-due to lies/the fact that a drug addiction isn't an excuse for being a shit person anyway. part of me wants him to suffer/wants him to go to jail bc of how he's made everyone else suffer. idk if we'll ever have a relationship/idk if I even want to.

same anon as drug addict dad aside from that- my relationship w/ my bff of 3 three years ended when I discovered it was all lies, my relationship w/ this boy ended bc we were both too mentally unstable, anxiety is the drive of my life, intrusive thoughts/paranoia are ruining me, my friend thinks I’m anorexic-and though I deny it I really am developing an ED. I either can’t sleep or it’s the only thing I can do. I bought some new razor blades- my legs are going to shit now. meth dad anon still my sister previously struggled w/ mental illness and had to go to the hospital. once my mom said that ‘if that ever happened again I would feel like a failure of a mother’ which made me scared/she has sorta found out in her own but hasn’t really helped me out- I think she’s in denial. my friend tells me my body is disgusting bc it’s too thin, but I love it. I am the lowest weight I’ve been in 2 ½ years but I feel fatter than ever. anyhow my life is shit idk what to do

Ok, so there’s a lot going on here (not a bad thing), so I’m going to try and divide this up into sections.

Number 1: Your dad.

Quite honestly, you don’t owe your dad a thing. If you don’t want to talk to him, if you don’t want a relationship with him, if you don’t want to forgive him, then that’s ok. Sometimes, people who share our genes aren’t our real family. Don’t feel guilty over cutting connections and moving on without him. It may be for the best. It’s also ok if you feel like you want him to suffer. He’s hurt you, and you’re allowed to be angry and spiteful, you’re allowed to hate him. Don’t feel bad because you feel this way.

Number 2: Your BFF and the boy

Sometimes, relationships end. Sometimes, it hurts like hell, but that doesn’t mean anything about you. You did not drive these people away. The circumstances weren’t right, and it was the right decision to break away if it was a friendship built on lies and a relationship that taxed you mentally. Allow yourself to grieve over these relationships, but keep moving forward. You’re probably better off.

Number 3: Intrusive thoughts are paranoia

These ones, I can relate to. My best advice is to partake in superstition to make you feel more safe, using protective sigils, wearing an evil eye bracelet and such. It makes you feel secure, like nothing can hurt you. As for the intrusive thoughts, try drawing them down. Vent art works some magic in making you feel better.

Number 4: Eating disorder and self harm:

I know how you feel, I’ve been right where you are. I know it feels like you can’t give it up, but you need to. Think of where you want to be, years from now. What job you have, maybe a partner, maybe a kid, maybe not. One thing I can tell you is that there won’t be room for these kinds of destructive behaviors in the future. They don’t have any place in your future, so you cannot let them destroy you and destroy a future and a present that could be filled with happiness. Please, talk to your friend. Get help. You will need support to get through this all.

Number 5: Your mom:

When I first told my mom I was cutting, she yelled and screamed and I cried. However, only 20 minutes at most later, she came up to my room and told me everything was going to be alright, that she was going to love and support me no matter what, and that we were going to get me help. I know it might feel like your mom couldn’t take it, but I can promise, she’d rather know, she’d rather have the opportunity to help you. She’s your mom, she wants to help you. Sit her down, talk to her about all this you’ve just told me. Let her in, she’s got your back.p

#ask #anon #answered #drugs//#meth//#self harm//#anorexia//#ed//#cursing//

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