lead balloon (the tumblr post that saved me)
if this comic resonated with you, it would mean the world to me if you donated to this palestinian family's escape fund.
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no creative notes because this isn't that kind of comic.
I know I don’t owe any of you anything but I still felt compelled to write about my long term absence. And I feel far enough away from the dangerous spot I was in to be able to make this comic. I have a therapist now, and she agreed that making this could be a very cathartic gesture, and the start of properly leaving these thoughts behind me. I am still, at seemingly random times, blindsided by fleeting desires to kill myself. They’re always passing urges, but it’s disarming, and uncomfortable. I worry sometimes that my brain’s spent so long thinking only about suicide that it’s forgotten how to think about anything else. Like, now that I've opened that door for myself, I'll never be able to fully shut it again. But I’m trying my best to encourage my mind in other directions. We'll see how that goes.
I am still donating all proceeds from my store to Palestinian causes. So far, I've donated over $15K, not including donations coming from my own pocket or the fundraising streams which jointly raised around $10K. In the time since I made my initial post about where this money would be going, the focus has shifted from aid organisations to directly donating to escape funds.
If you'd like to do the same, you can look at Operation Olive Branch, which hosts hundreds of Palestinian escape funds or donate to Safebow, which has helped facilitate the safe crossing and securing of important medical procedures for over 150 at-risk palestinians since the beginning of the genocide.
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one of my beloved friends (very autism) was in.. not denial but ignorance sounds mean. but that abt themself last time you brought up the raads r test so i sent it to the gc (full of autism) and they were like psh. fake test no one could get below 100. they know now but i think about it so much
The thing is. When you take the autism test. And you see your score is in the 100 to 160 range. You think. Oh this is probably the middle? Middle autism. Tinge of autism. Your relatives calling you bright but shy autism. Just a whiff of autism. And then you see the score ranges. And you go. This test is lying to me there is absolutely no way the majority of people score under 65. The 65 number is such a low cutoff and so many of these experiences are clearly universal a score under 65 is something they made up in a lab. People who score under 65 are obviously scoring just under that mark from 59 to 64 and they’re also obviously lying or purposely misrepresenting their experiences as less severe than they are. And then you find out there are real people who get a 20 or 30 or 7 on it. And you go. Ah
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I've been on a bit ob a Russell Crowe movie binge in the past few weeks and since he is almost sixty now, many of the movies I've watched were consequently older movies. and when I watched them, it struck me again, how much hollywood has changed in the last few decades when it comes to depicting men.
take Gladiator for example from the year 2000. Russell Crowe plays basically an action hero in it. he is a big, muscly dude, who is very strong and uses that strength to defeat his enemies. and this is what he looks like:
looks like a strong man, right?
in the same year, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine looked like this in the first X-men movie:
in 2013 the same character played by the same actor looked like this:
it's a bit much, isn't it? I mean, he looks so skinny.
and if we go even further back: look at what the womanizer character Face from the A-team looked like in the 80s show vs the 2010 movie reboot:
maybe the difference isn't that big but it really startled me when I watched that movie for the first time. in my mind there was no reason why Face should be particularly muscular since he is the charming one not the one known for being particularly strong.
if we go even further back, look at the charmin womanizer character Hawkeye in M*A*S*H from the 70's.
I know he's a doctor and there is no reason for him to be ripped but I got the feeling if they did the show now, he would be.
I don't know what my point really is I'm just saying I got a bit nostalgic when watching these men. I cannot be the only one who'd rather see more of this:
than this:
also, as a sidenote: Russell Crowe gained a lot of weight for the nice guys and he is a fucking powerhouse in that film, like, when he punches someone, you really feel it because of the weight that is behind it and the shere mass of his body.
(even if this may look different, he's about to break Ryan Gosling's character's arm. I couldn't find a gif of him punching someone but I swear it looks painfull as hell.)
so, in short: can we get big, heavy action guys back? cause I'm tired of seeing these skinny, despite being muscular dudes who look dehydrated as hell and on steroids.
and can we stop making characters ripped just for the sake of it? cause I'd rather cuddle with a guy looking like Hawkeye than one looking like Face from the new A-team movie.
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Today on Donuts and Dogs we encountered a large dog with a muzzle in a group with a few other dogs on the trail. I didn’t initiate anything but the dog came up and rubbed so aggressively affectionately on us that we had to pet him.
I offered that I’ve seen dogs muzzled to prevent them eating rocks as a roundabout question. His mom sighed and said he has to wear it because otherwise he eats marijuana.
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you have to go to work so you can pay for your doctor, who is not taking your insurance right now, and if you say i can't afford the doctor's you are told - get a better job. it is very sad that you are unwell, yes, but maybe you should have thought about that before not having a better job.
(where is the better job? who is giving out these better jobs? you are sick, you are hurting - how the hell are you supposed to be well enough for this better job?)
but you go to the doctor because you had the nerve to be hurt or sick or whatever else. and they tell you that it is because you have anxiety. you try your best. you are a self-advocate. you've done the reading (which sometimes pisses them off worse, honestly). you say it is actually adding to my anxiety, it is effecting my quality of life. so they say that you are fat. they say that all young people have this happen to them, isn't it a medical marvel! they say that you should eat more vegetables. they say that you probably just need to lose a little more weight, and that you are faking it for attention.
(what attention could this doctor possibly give? what validation? that's their fucking job, isn't it?)
there is always a hypochondriac, right. someone always tells you about a hypochondriac. or someone who is unnecessarily aggressive during the worst days of their life. or someone looking "for a quick fix". or some idiot who wasn't educated about how to properly care for themselves who just abandons their treatment. and again, the hypochondriac, the overly-cautious hysteric. these people don't deserve to be treated like humans (right), and since you might be one of these people, you also don't get treated like a human. because those people can really fuck with the system, you now have to pay for it. and besides. you're actually probably faking it.
(more often than not, you find a 2:1 ratio of these stories. for every "hypochondriac", there are 2 people who knew something was wrong, and yet nobody could fucking find it. the story often ends with pointless suffering. the story often ends with and now it's too late, and it's going to kill me.)
you are actually just making excuses. someone else got that procedure or that diagnosis and he's fine, you should be fine too. someone else said they watched a documentary about other inspirational people with your exact same condition, maybe you should be inspirational, too. you're just too morbid. your pain and your experience is probably just not statistically concerning. it is all self-reported anyway, and you're just being a baby.
(once, while sitting down in the middle of making coffee, you had the sudden, horrible thought - i could kill myself to make the pain stop. you had to call your best friend after that. had to pet your dog. had to cry about it in the shower. you won't, but that moment - god, fuck. the pain just goes on and on.)
you know someone who went in for routine surgery and said i still feel everything. they told her to just relax. it took her kicking and screaming before they figured out she wasn't lying - the anesthetic drip hadn't been working. you know someone who went in for severe migraines who was told drink water and lose weight. you know someone who was actively bleeding out and throwing up in the ER and was told you're just having a bad period.
in the ER there are always these little posters saying things like "don't wait! get checked today!" and you think about how often you do wait. how often the days spool out. you once waited a full week before seeing the doctor for what you thought was a sprained wrist. it had actually been broken - they had to rebreak it to set it.
but you go into the doctor. the problem you're having is immediate. the person behind the counter frowns and says we're not taking your insurance. you will be paying for this out-of-pocket.
they send you home with tylenol and a little health packet about weight loss or anxiety or attention deficit. on the front it has your birthday and diagnosis. you think about crying, and the words swim. it might as well say go fuck yourself. it might as well say you're a fucking idiot. it might as well say light your money on fire and lie down in it. and the entire fucking time - the problem persists.
it's okay. it's okay, it's just another thing, you think. it's just another thing i have to learn to live with.
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