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prose-among-the-trees · 5 months

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I feel the need finally to bring up introjects in a way that’s going to be a hot take, because good god am I sick of having things that I have experienced physically be told to me by those who haven’t.

I respect whatever an introject remembers or identifies with from their source, and I’d like to say this straight off because this is important. I know of alters and parts for whom source is integral to their identity, specifically the way it relates to day to day trauma and how that intermingles.

That being said, please, as an introject who has had something happen or occur or has some sort of disability from source, do not try to tell me what it is like because I have already experienced it physically.

You got scars in whatever media you were sourced from? Lovely, but as someone who is forced to bear that burden of looking deformed when those scars can be visible every single day, do not try to tell me what that is like.

You have physical disabilities that were gained or you were born with in whatever media you introjected from? Perfect, but as someone who cannot function without my heart being assisted by pacemaker, do not tell me what it’s like to struggle as though I’ve not gone through it and as though I do not continue to bear that weight.

You as an introject are of a certain race in source and remember knowing about the food you consumed of that culture? Do not try to correct me, as someone of that culture, on what I identify with and hold.

You have memories of sexual assault from the media you were sourced from? Do not dare presume you can speak over those who have experienced that bodily.

Source memories, pseudo memories, exo memories, whatever you’d like to call them, are individual to your trauma and your struggle as someone with osdd or did. I understand that.

However, your source does not give you the right to talk over, to one up, or God forbid to “educate” those who have dealt with or experienced those issues on how to live with them.

I spoke to an introject today who had scars in their source and identifies with them as an alter. When I spoke up about my own, I was told that I needed to speak someplace where I would not upset others. Because my scars are not desirable or battle caused, I cannot discuss my own experiences.

This in essence is a lot of the issue I have with fictive heavy online systems on places like discord or even tumblr. These memories, these source associations, which I know are indicative of their own trauma in some way, somehow surpass the validity of someone who has actually experienced the struggle physically because it’s more presentable and more desirable.

It’s not all of them, but it’s enough of them that the fictive heavy/introject heavy syscord systems now have that reputation, and it makes interacting so frustrating.

I should not have to explain why claiming an experience you haven’t physically gone through as though you have because you’re an introject is bad. I shouldn’t have to explain that speaking over individuals who deal with these things physically is actively silencing minority groups.

Again let me note that I have full respect for introjects who identify with memories that did not happen to their body. The only thing I ask is that I’m not spoken over in favor of more desirable or digestible experiences that they claim are just as impactful as me living with the things I do.

I know systems who have these memories and respect others who have experienced them physically. For those of you who fall into this category, thank you. You know who you are.

For those of you who believe in things like alter race, separate disabilities being just as valid as experiencing them physically (to the point that you’re trying to educate bodily disabled people/systems)- please listen to those who are frustrated and angry. Please understand why trying to speak over and educate that group of people or any group of people as though you’ve gone through it physically is damaging.

I understand your memories reflect your trauma, likely indirectly for some of you, and I empathize with that.

Please take the time to be respectful to the voices of the groups that have been silenced and spoken over in favor of an introject’s take on something purely source related.

The people of color with osdd or did that have been speaking up about others claiming their races as alters have been laughed off or told that they’re overreacting. They are not. Keep fighting the good fight guys. You’re fantastic in every way. As someone who isn’t in that position, I want to uplift your voices and the things that need to be said. You’ve got my support all the way.

In the past I’ve let other systems try to explain why alter race exists and why their ‘alters of color’ are just as valid as actual people of color. I believed them.

An alter who has the memory or individual source created experience of being oppressed but has not been that way bodily cannot claim to struggle in the same way.

If you got this far reading, thanks. I’m glad I was able to share this with someone.

Be safe.

-🧠 🌲 🔭 🫀 (group effort for this post)

#syscourse #dissociative identity disorder #did osdd #did #actually did #actually dissociative #dissociative system #syscord #system discourse #traumagenic system #sysblr

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camp-counselor-life · 1 month

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Ok, so I had an anxiety attack last night on a date and I'm trying to parse out what happened and my mental state. Is anxiety often irrational? Yes, and this definitely was. But also I feel like this would give neurotypical people anxiety, so justified? IDK.

TW: ableism

So here goes. The gal I am dating invited me to a gymnastics meet. Now, I love gymnastics (our shared university has an excellent team) and haven't been to a meet in eons, so I agreed. Did not think it through, just said yes. In the back of my brain, I knew there could be some issues, but dammit, let's just stuff those down and pretend.

I show up at her apartment nearly 10 minutes earlier than we agreed. She informs me that she thinks they have a clear bag policy (at all times, I carry a large black purse with all the stuff in it). We look and it says you can bring a purse. So cool, we will see if they'll let it in.

Now we're driving and there's traffic (the team is a big deal). And we're struggling to find a place to park (I had suggested we take the train bc that's how much I hate traffic and parking). We park somewhere that I am not 100% sure is allowed, but we're like 99.5% sure. This fact will come back later.

We get to the door. The man informs me my purse is too big. In a moment of panic, where I am about to be separated from my meds and inhaler, I inform him that it's got medical equipment in it, something my date does not know and this of course reveals that I have some sort of disability where I cannot be separated from the contents of my purse. He gives me a special tag and I get to take my bag in.

At this point, my date (who is aware I am autistic but nothing else) could be thinking one of two things: I have lied because I want to bring my purse in or I have some sort of shameful medical condition bad enough to require a purse-full of items I didn't tell her about. Both run through my head along with the thought of "I am going to hell, did I just lie to bring in my purse?" and it's not a lie, I do need to drag that stuff around, but also I probably could have made it 2.5 hours without it. I also decided that this would be a good way to phrase my discomfort to several friends, all of whom were like what?

We sit down and at this point I am so anxious and uncomfortable and ashamed that I barely talk the entire meet. It is also extremely loud, crowded, and the guy behind me is wearing strong cologne. We make small talk and hold hands, which I think was fine.

In the fourth (and final) session of the meet, probably almost 1.5 hours in, I have finally calmed down enough to enjoy myself. The shame is still there, and I don't know how to fully explain this to people, so I'm writing about it on tumblr for y'all to ignore.

So, what does this mean? I am probably not as "at peace" with my disabilities as I thought. The shame is real and strong and I feel like I could have had so much better of an experience if I had just done something differently. It's my fault.

And then I had a nightmare about the stadium last night, so that was like the cherry on top.

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taterforlife · 1 year

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Things Parents of Children with Autism/ADHD/Developmental Delay/Intellectual Disability/etc. Should Know Before Agreeing to Applied Behavior Analysis Services (This is not a complete list but it has some that I consider most important):

You WILL see online criticism of people who have had bad experiences with ABA. You want a provider that is client-centered and cares about your child's needs and wants and makes sure that the process includes GETTING TO KNOW YOUR CHILD AND YOU and establishing a positive relationship before placing any sort of expectations on the child. People do not want to change their behavior or habits for someone they do not care about. And you want a provider that is trauma-informed and will take ALL PRECAUTIONS against causing trauma, using evidence-based behavior analytical treatments and focusing on reinforcement and letting the child make decisions throughout much of the process, and including you in it too.

It is meant to be an INTENSIVE SERVICE. It is based on the client's needs how many hours services should provide in a clinic or in your home, but this could range to anywhere from 10-20 hours on average. Sometimes more or less. Not being able to arrange those hours can cause more harm than good should your child have many needs or delays.

Daytime hours during the school year get you off the waitlist faster. Evening school hours are always taken first during the academic year. We often struggle finding families willing to take their kids out of school early or take them late. ABA companies should not pressure you on what choice to make, but if you feel your child could benefit or if you are experiencing high-intensity behaviors of concern such as aggression or elopement, it may be able to get you services faster. We are ALWAYS looking for daytime sessions!

Your participation is NECESSARY for success. The child must have interventions that are consistent across places and people. Otherwise, it will most likely be less effective or not effective at all. We want to teach you the strategies we use that show to be successful and work with you and the child! We want to work to the point where the child and the family does not need us anymore! But we cannot do that if you do not learn and accept teaching from us. And often insurances require it and will not pay anymore if the report shows you are not participatong and implementing. We are a service meant to enhance the lives of clients in a way that gives them wider access to things they want and like, build more meaningful relationships, and learn new skills that benefit them. If you do not want to participate, then you are probably thinking of a different service, such as having an attendant.

A good provider who is client-centered is not there to reduce behaviors others find "annoying" or "disruptive", such as stimming. They can be taught skills to help increase attention to tasks and temporarily redirect them, but it is often unethical and harmful to the child to stop them from doing it altogether. The treatment plan may even incorporate time for the child to be able to stim/flap hands/rock their body/etc. on purpose because often, they need it to regulate themselves. It feels good. It's their version of tapping fingers when nervous, playing with a strand of hair, etc. It would be unethical to make a client uncomfortable just because a behavior does not look "normal". If if truly hurts them to do the behavior, such as banging their head against a wall, then it will be addressed for safety concerns.

#applied behavior analysis #ABA #autism awareness #autism #adhd #developmental delay #trauma #intellectual disability #BCBA #board certified behavior analyst

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doberbutts · 1 year

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This probably sounds stupid but I’m asking in good faith, how can one bd antiblack while being black? And how does one become that way? Like I genuinely can’t comprehend how you can be racist towards people that are like you.

Easily: in an antiblack society, antiblackness is a system in which every person can be complicit or even can further. Your identity does not give you the magical ability to not be affected by or internalize antiblackness.

Kanye West is a rich black man who made his initial money and claim to fame singing about the black struggle in the United States. Due to a mixture of various things- some of which the general public such as ourselves will not be aware of and some that we are well aware of- he began to show antiblackness first towards his black ex girlfriends where he would sing about them using antiblack stereotypes. Then he began to use antiblackness as a weapon against anyone who disagreed with him, coming to a head when he threw in his lot with Trump. This is why I say, from there it's really not that surprising that he began to show antisemitism. He was already well on his way.

I once had a black coworker who looked me in the face and said, Jaz you're such a nigger. Why? Because some of my likes and preferences are in line with a few black stereotypes and she viewed that as a bad thing. That's antiblackness. Doesn't matter if the person who says it is black.

I had another black coworker try to explain to me there's "black people" and "niggers" and those counted among "niggers" were as many offensive black stereotypes as he could list. That's antiblackness. Doesn't matter if the person saying it is black.

Chris Rock made an antiblack and ableist joke about Jada Smith despite himself being black and disabled.

There are cis women gleefully signing away abortion rights. There are gay people forcibly outing each other. There are transgender people misgendering and suicide baiting each other. There are disabled people hurting each other over parking spaces and benefits. There are jews parroting all sorts of conspiracy theory nonsense.

Your identity does not mean you cannot harm people like you. In a bigoted society we are all responsible, we are all culpable, and we are never immune from it.

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twilightguardian · 1 year

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New review from Lilith Fairen where I really begin to wonder if she has reading comprehension so poor that I should feel guilty for being harsh to someone with a mental disability. The lack of fundamental comprehension is that bad.

Either that or she does this on purpose because like CanonSeeker, she thinks that "criticizing the critics" aka bullying, is a sane thing to do.

But of course Lilith doesn't comprehend the first thing about criticism because it has to come from some sort of intellectual place. But she doesn't do that. She's just hating because she hates Celtic Phoenix/Raymond, and not for anything that he's done, but because he's a fan of a show she dislikes: Madoka Magica. She is peak petty and childish.

Where as most so-called "capital C Critics" and "RWDE" are genuine fans of RWBY and look at it through this lens of being a fan, Lilith is not a fan of FRWBY. She doesn't understand the point of it, doesn't comprehend it. It's rather sad considering she's a writer and should know how writing works, and that it can involve editing. Someone who is more artistically inclined takes their criticism to an artistic level, but she doesn't understand this.

Anyway, by now it's clear that I'm not really responding to Lilith or any of her pathetic ilk because they're going to keep doing this no matter what. My goal isn't to communicate with those who have gouged out their ears in order to keep hating. My goal is to make sure anyone who talks about Fixing RWBY and becomes curious about it will see how Lilith and people like her twist things around to lie about a fan project done out of passion, telling people its done out of spite because people like her cannot stand it when people are more successful and popular than her. Especially if it's a man, doubly so a Madoka Magica fan.

You have an illness. You are mentally obligated to make yourself unhappy. Dislike FRWBY all you want, but no one is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to watch a fan video. Having gone through all the saved logs of your previous tumblr, I know for a fact that you have a visceral need to be unhappy. You can't help yourself. Seek therapy or at the very least unplug your internet. Go outside, breathe some fresh air. The internet has obviously not been good for you.

Mistral is canonically meant to be based on Asia. How dare the worldbuilding actually reflect that. No, it should be more Western or else you're fetishizing. Because erasing other cultures from existence for no reason is totally a logical route to take, right? Absolutely bonkers insane fucking logic. This woman is stupid or racist. Pick your poison.

Also keep in mind the only fandom Lilith regularly partakes in is still a Japanese anime. It's fundamentally Asian. All the characters are Japanese and they likely partake in Japanese culture. You write stories based on these characters I guess you're automatically "fetishizing" Asian culture. That is Lilith's twisted ass logic.

Lilith wouldn't know what a good reason was if it slapped her in the face and stole all of her possessions.

Plot isn't the only important thing to the story, and as a writer I'd HOPE that Lilith knows this, but unfortunately it seems not. That doesn't bode well for her story, which I've been struggling to get past the first twenty or so paragraphs.

Essentially what she's complaining about is the fact that characters take some time to actually be people. We get time for the characters to breathe, but more importantly for character relationships and dynamics to be established, enforced, reinforced and enhanced. But no, it's not plot, so it's not important. No wonder she likes the canon show, which neglects this. If she does this with Glints Saga as well, I can't see many people actually caring about the characters or the romance she's so interested in writing for in the first story. Then again, I'm sure she's perfectly fine with it if it's in something like Precure. Though she only seems to like a la mode.

Look at how the logic here doesn't follow. The girls are aided a little bit by their companions which means they aren't protagonists.

Apparently according to Lilith a protagonist is someone who doesn't get assistance from anyone ever, who doesn't interact with anyone. Effectively what Lilith wants is a mary sue protagonist, which canon RWBY never was nor will Fixing RWBY Team RWBY ever be. Plus the girls in canon get help from other characters all the time, and rarely do anything for themselves unless Jaune brings up an idea first and if they do it's after sitting around a whole lot and the only thing they manage to accomplish is getting a lot of things destroyed and people killed.

Raymond also hates the female protagonists so much that he makes them more active characters in their own story than canon. Because he hates them. Makes perfect sense.

Lilith once again showing she knows nothing about anything. Changing the location of a scene from a train station to a festival and expanding upon it isn't padding. Unless Lilith is actually a critic after all. She's using Fixing RWBY as a way to critique the canon show but hide it behind the guise of hating on a "critic" so she doesn't lose her friend group. Because heck knows she doesn't have friends anywhere else from the look of it.

She doesn't understand what padding is in a story. Padding is useless fluff that adds nothing to a story. If there are important character dynamics going on, and worldbuilding being shown through the setting, it's not padding. Simple as.

Raymond's writing of Madoka fanfiction has nothing to do with this. Lilith is trying to label Raymond a pedophile, I suppose, which is incredibly cunty behaviour. Salem is canonically 16 during the setting of The Lost Fables and yet her design makes her look like she'd fit in with the cast of Grease. Making a 16 year old actually LOOK like a 16 year old isn't gross, Lilith. Grow the fuck up, I implore you.

This is what happens when you only scroll through the video. Neo, Ruby, Yang, Weiss, Roman and Qrow are all framing devices. Neo just happened to be the first one, followed by Yang. But she wouldn't know that because she doesn't pay attention. Her goal, despite calling Fixing RWBY a "spitefic" is to act spiteful and to lie and be a massive bitch in service of defending a show that she barely cares about and likely wouldn't if it hadn't been for hearing through the grapevine that RWBY had a massive "hatedom".

Also really telling how obsessed Lilith is with the idea of subservience. I'd think she's projecting quite a bit. Just like how obsessed she is with complaining about Fixing's Shiloh or Roman. Raymond lives in her head rent free.

Ahh. So she does know that Neo isn't the only framing device used. Love that she implied that but then had to admit that's not true. It didn't even take her a full paragraph to admit she lied.

You can dislike the framing device all you want, but it's more engaging than what canon did. It also wasn't pointless, and her saying that it was doesn't make it true. The point of it was to show that these are stories that the girls know, possibly modified over the millennia, to show that these stories are all interconnected. These are fairy tales of Remnant, but also those fairy tales weren't the whole truth. Lilith can't comprehend anything unless it's directly spelled out to her, and she admits it by calling it confusing. If it requires her to rev up a braincell, it's too confusing. Just sit back and consume product, that's how you watch RWBY, this is bad because it makes you think!

She doesn't want to summarize the rest of it because it's actually good and that ruins her narrative lol

Yes, I repeat, a child didn't look like a child. It's like those really cheap 80's movies where a 14 year old is played by a 38 year old. Yes, I totally believe you're a high school student, sir.

It's apparently wrong to want Salem to look as old as Ruby was during volume 1. Because she looks like she's 30. She looks no different than she is now when you take off the special effects. She looked no different in age than when she had children, which is unfortunate.

lmao she's mad

Like what does she want? This isn't an AU or a full rewrite. It's a reconstruction project with the goal in mind to show how RWBY could be a lot better with a couple of little tweaks and changes. Like I said earlier, what Raymond is doing is essentially developmental editing. He's not the author so he's not going to do any major changes to the story. Ozpin still has a host at the end of the day. Vernal was still a little servant of Raven and died. These preserve the overall plot beats of the stories while being different, but there's nothing that fundamentally changes by design. That's on purpose.

There's a difference between hating or being frustrated with aspects of a show and hating the entire thing. Raymond falls into the former camp. He likes RWBY. Doesn't mean he can't have problems with it. That's too much for some people's little pea brains to understand and that's very unfortunate. It creates unnecessary division and toxicity in the fandom than there should or really needs to be.

Some people have this revulsion to others actually wanting to engage with their fandoms in ways those people don't like and have this sense of entitlement to the fandom and what goes on in them. It's a disturbing trend, especially with those that have a problem with discourse and critique. Some think that any kind of fandom engagement that isn't wholly, unquestioningly positive is automatically hate and that's disturbing.

It's really not. Raymond has only watched the first episode and he disliked it, though couldn't put his finger on why. This has nothing to do with that spinoff, and I have no idea why Lilith would think that. The episode was recontextualizing a bunch of fairy tales in Remnant's world that everyone would have known.

Raymond has said a few times that he doesn't want to touch Fairy Tales of Remnant because he has no interest in it at all, so there would be no sense for him to do it in episodes 6&7 of all things.

It's commendable that Lilith is trying very hard to use that dusty old thing in her head, but she's still got a ways to go. Her logic doesn't follow, the speculation that she has doesn't come from anywhere and has no follow through.

She loves repeating herself, doesn't she? Girl, this isn't twitter. Saying things over and over and over doesn't make it more true.

Just because you can't comprehend why something was done doesn't necessarily make it bad lol

Also can't say that I've really come across anyone except for Lilith who says it's disorienting, which leads me to the conclusion that until further evidence of someone who isn't an "anti-Critic" says the framing device was confusing, that it's said deliberately to have something to complain about, because otherwise, there would be nothing to complain about. She's already struggling so much with this review because she knows it wasn't that bad so she has to look for things. I am so happy that Lilith is so boringly predictable that I said hours before her 'review' came out that she was going to focus on Neo being the first in line for the framing of the story.

What's telling about it, Lilith? The point of words is to actually have meaning behind what is being said.

She says the emphasis isn't on Team RWBY, but they take up the majority of the transitions.

Neo to Young Yang, Adult Yang to Young Blake to Adult Blake, Young Weiss to Adult Weiss, Young Ruby to Adult Ruby to Teen Qrow to Adult Qrow then finally to Young Roman. So she's not even correct that Qrow ends the section. Neo and Roman bookend the segment, but the meat of the segment is taken up by Team RWBY+Q.

Now, could he have started with a member of Team RWBY? Sure, definitely. But if you look at the bolded names you'll notice a pattern.

1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6

The bookends get the first and last, but the middle portions get double focus. It balances out.

Only Ruby's weapon is damaged, but it's presumed to still be able to fight in gun form. She just cannot transform it into a scythe. He said nothing about Blake's weapon, Yang's weapon, Weiss' weapon or any other weapon. Not only are none of the other characters are impacted due to their weapons. Yang and Neo are injured. Blake, Weiss and even Ruby are still readying to fight.

Also really ironic she's so bent out of shape that she thinks FRWBY doesn't have the main characters do anything when canon doesn't allow them to do much, either. Why aren't you complaining about that, Lil? Could it be that she doesn't actually care? She just has such a hateboner for Raymond because he likes Madoka.

Raymond has never insisted that everything about RWBY is 'horrible and terrible'. It's heavily flawed, and frustratingly so. Raymond has consistently been the more positive person of his reaction friend group over the years, often saying he likes many things of the show. But Lilith doesn't know this because unlike me, who tried to understand Lilith before speaking about her, she's only seen his skits and videos specifically for Fixing RWBY. She knows nothing about him, and thinks nothing of trying to pin every terrible thing she can think of onto him, from pedophile to racist.

Lilith doesn't understand the concept of deep editing. Not anything beyond the basics of spelling, grammar and maybe attempting to change a few minor points around. Comparing the beginning to her older draft of Glints Saga: Papillon to her newer version, she doesn't do much significant to change it.

Don't get me wrong, it's BETTER than the older version, but that's not saying much. Lilith is too precious with her story to do something like what Raymond is doing: a developmental edit, a large edit that might change a lot of things but make the overall story better.

And Matrixdragon decided to chime in as well.

Yang is trying to stave off hypothermia with Neo. She can probably move, but it wouldn't be the best thing for her. But like I said above, Yang's weapons are not damaged.

I think this is actually a fair criticism, and one I've seen a little bit with other people. To each their own, really. It's not like RWBY didn't try and do the same thing with Volume 1 and the whole background NPCs, keeping the events isolated to a small group of important characters. What Raymond is doing here is cutting out background characters that don't need to be there and can be filled with other ones, ones that can lead to better character dynamics and interactions than if they were strangers. Some people are going to like that, and some people won't, and that's fine. It's certainly not unique to FRWBY and no one else complains when coincidences for story happen in any other franchise, though. So it's a little eyerolling when it's suddenly a problem because a fan did it for a fixit fic.

Do old ladies have a stereotype of being curious? Maria didn't wander into the middle of a battle zone during her first introduction in canon, either, so what's your point? The whole train was being attacked so it wouldn't matter where she'd go she'd still be in the middle of a battle zone. We know from context that she's a former huntress but it makes no sense otherwise why she'd wander in other than to have a contrivance that she's there, which makes the contrivance more noticeable. We don't even learn that she can still fight until late into the Atlas arc.

At least with Fixing RWBY's new introduction of Maria, she is shown off the bat to be a capable fighter and we know right away that she likely came to the area to help fight. That makes the contrivance more understandable as a reason why she'd be there. She's a character that got a lot of focus in canon even if she just walked past the camera because she has a highly unique character design, so it's not a secret she's going to be important, and some people even rightly pointed out she was likely a silver-eyed warrior due to how they framed the opening to the anime.

The characters don't trust Roman. Blake certainly doesn't. But they acknowledge he's in this with them for better or worse and now they're all stranded together, so there wouldn't be any point in lying to everyone.

Yang is not someone I would call 'mature' in canon. Being an angry little sourpuss when things don't go her way or someone challenges them is not what anyone would consider mature.

It's also not that Yang is unwilling to give Blake a chance, either. She hasn't completely forgiven Blake for what she'd done, and Yang is under no obligations to forgive her, either. Forgiving someone has nothing to do with maturity, and the fact that this seems to imply you think so is unsettling. It means that someone cannot have feelings about something traumatic that happened, and the more 'adult' thing to do would be to just get over it. Things like this don't resolve overnight. They take time, and before Yang and Blake can become a proper couple, they need to properly work things out, not sidestep the issue and pretend like nothing's wrong until there might be, then step on eggshells around each other, wondering if the other is mad at them for no reason.

I don't think Adam gave a shit about being detected. It's not like he was trying to ninja his way through the train car. It also wasn't just Cardin he had to deal with, but Qrow and Russel at the same time. I honestly don't remember whether Cardin was a competent fighter in canon, but we know he was at least tactical and not an idiot. So 'the likes of Cardin' only means someone thinks he's an incompetent fighter because he's a bully. But Cardin in Fixing isn't like Cardin in canon. He was more competent in the scenes where he fought and he likely became stronger during aftermath of Beacon.

The only ones being spiteful around here are you two. It's seriously pathetic.

#rwby #rwde #fixing rwby #frwby #lilith fairen #matrixdragon

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ladybirdplace · 3 months

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Self Care & An Apology

(Content warning: Discussion of mental illness, mentions of self harm and poor eating habits)

So . . . I think maybe I should revise something that I’ve said before that is inaccurate and, in retrospect, wishy washy.

I’ve said before in the past that I think of the regular things we do for ourselves to continue to live, like eating and drinking and sleeping and dressing one’s self, qualify in my mind as passive acts of self love.

But I realize that that leaves a concerning question.

What about the people who can’t do those things? Can't dress themselves or feed themselves or bathe themselves? Is that a sign of a lack of self love?

Short answer: No, not all. Uh, actually, scratch that thing I said before.

Long answer:

So, I've been thinking a lot about my ideas about self love and self care, as I always do. And, during my time in crisis, I’ve noticed that I feel a lot of guilt about my own struggles with taking care of myself physically.

Sometimes this is due to chronic fatigue and sometimes it is due to my PDA not liking the expectation, or my OCD indecision.

And I’ve found that I feel like a bad spouse when, for instance, I am unable to eat because I cannot decide what I want or my autism refuses to have me eat something I don't like or if I’m too tired to get up and eat.

And this guilt gets a lot in the way of me having a good relationship with myself.

When I was in a much healthier frame of mind, but still having doubts about how well I treat myself, it helped me to think of my acts of self care, the ones that most people (able bodied and mentally well people) do automatically, as proof that I really loved myself. And it helped to think of these acts that we do as akin to the way we do acts of service for a partner. It made it feel more romantic.

However, in my times when I’ve been very insecure, my lack of self care made me feel as if I just didn’t love myself enough, and of course, that only made me more insecure.

I’ve experienced this sort of thing before in therapy. I’ve had therapists or even friends interpret my inability to do certain 'normal' tasks as a form of a lack of self love. Or even my occasional self harm as an act of self hatred, when really these are due to my disability and has little to do with my self image.

I think that I’ve been viewing these acts and tasks all wrong. I do not think that my 'failure' to complete these tasks adequately everyday is a sign that I lack affection and concern for myself. I simply think they are things that I cannot always reasonably do, and that assertion of significance to something I have no control over is actually really harmful!

See . . . For more than a decade, I’ve been in therapy. I’ve been seeing psychiatrists and psychologists and many, many other mental health practitioners all these years since I was a child.

Looking back, I see that this whole time, I’ve been being guilt tripped for being ill.

I’ve been presented with all these different rules that are supposed to work for everyone to improve one's mental health. All the old axioms: Think positively, counteract your negative thoughts, visualize success, socialize, live a healthy lifestyle, take deep breaths, blah blah blah.

All through these years, all the advice I’ve received essentially has boiled down to this concept that if you do all these things, you will get better. And if you do not get better, that means you are doing them wrong. That means that you don’t want to get better. That means that you are a bad patient, and a waste of everyone’s time because you are refusing treatment. And that means, you do not deserve treatment.

My last psychiatrist told me that she thought that I was too attached to being ill. She thought that I didn’t know who I was without being miserable, and that I was refusing to be helped because I didn’t want help. There was nothing I could say to convince her otherwise. She had only known me for a year. And her assertions, I feel, have epitomized my entire experience of having mental health services of all types, even moreso because of how little she understood about me.

Now, I’ve been put through hell because of my mind, and I do not want to live the way I have been. So of course I’ve been desperate to get better. I’ve been working tirelessly to achieve this goal ever since I got sick. It has been a deep rooted obsession for me for many years.

I am terrified of allowing myself to get worse. I am terrified that I am not doing enough for myself to get better, that I am just not trying hard enough. Everything I do is never enough. I do not want to spend a single second more as sick as I am.

Fueled by all my therapists, psychiatrists and social workers, my OCD is like a monstrous amalgamation of all those bad faith interpretations and cruel narratives. I demand more effort from myself than anyone else ever could. If those standards were incredibly steep before, they are impossible to satisfy in my own mind.

Usually OCD obsessions aren’t really life or death, but I find in this case, it is very close. Because I’ve experienced just how bad it can get, how rock bottom is never really the bottom, just how much mental anguish my own brain can cause me, getting better is everything to me. It is the most important part of my life, and it has never stopped being my top priority.

So I torment myself about getting better.

Subsequently, I have also found that when I have days that I am so fed up with the constant demand I make of myself to always be working towards becoming more mentally healthy and more well functioning, and more stable every second of every day that I just give up and stop caring, that is when I feel most relief and connection to myself.

Even though it may seem sick, (and maybe it is) when I let go and allow myself to just be ill, think bad thoughts, stay in bed all day doing nothing, get bitter about everyone in my life who has ever hurt me, grieve the person I never became, despair over the things I can never have, catastrophize, isolate myself, I RELISH in it. And I love that it isn’t what other people want and expect me to do.

Because it is my choice. And it is real and honest. And I am a person, not just a patient. A person, not an ungrateful failure, not a manipulative dramaqueen. A real person.

Even when I’m being self deprecating, there is such a freedom for me to actually think what I think without suppressing it, arguing with it, reasoning it away. Even when I’m thinking badly about myself, I love myself more during those moments than I do when I’m forcing myself to be positive, and gentle, and stable, and confident. Fuck that shit.

Maybe that whole story really doesn’t have much to do with me saying that self care is passive self love, but I think it was necessary to illustrate what I mean.

Obviously, there are are people who are disabled who cannot do self care tasks that most able-bodied, mentally well people would call basic, because of any disability, physical or mental. And that does not indicate a lack of self love, or a presence of self hate.

Those statements I made were more about how I thought of my own self relationship at the time, and aren’t some universal truth, and I know that I said it in a way that made it seem like it was fact.

I do still think that that way of looking at things could be helpful for some people who doubt their own self love. But I’ve certainly learned that it is not an absolute truth, just a perspective.

I'm sorry if those comments I made offended anyone, or made them feel bad. I know that they made me feel bad in the long run, because they were a reflection of the way I’ve been taught to think about self care.

#ladybird speaks #self care #ocd

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ratsalad · 2 years

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love reading your house md thoughts. is there anything about the show you would change if you could?

the first thought that came to me: i'd change things so that wilson and cuddy weren't constantly trying to change house or tell him what to do re: his addiction when he so clearly wasn't ready to change.

this was a big issue for me throughout the show, because while i understand their frustration as people who love him and who don't want to see him suffer, they failed to see that the constant lecturing pushed house deeper into denial - as it often does to addicts when they're in the precontemplative stage.

what he really needed instead was support (not to be confused with enabling), acceptance and understanding of his choices - real understanding; the awareness that he is where he is right now and they can't change him. this doesn't mean they shouldn't speak up when he makes bad choices. frankly, they were fantastic friends - the only problem was that they didn't realize people don't come out of denial unless they realize it themselves.

but i can also see why wilson (if not cuddy - and only because i don't have as good a read on her as wilson) couldn't be this person for house - wilson's a fixer. he has to feel needed, so he gives people solutions to their problems - even problems they're not willing to admit to having.

house eventually did get out of precontemplative and into contemplative at the end of season 5 when he realized things were too far gone and he needed help - and good for him - but notice how he had to come to that realization himself. it really, really cannot work any other way. i speak from first hand experience.

i'm not sure if i can think of any Big Plot Things to change - the show's writing is far from perfect, but overall i'm satisfied with where they decided to go mostly. there are some things i'd change:

i wish cuddy respected house's disability more in earlier seasons;

i wish he wasn't referred to as an addict in earlier seasons when he was really just a guy in so much pain he developed a dependence (you can see how he might get defensive - and unwilling to recognize later on that he does have an addiction - when people were calling him an addict before he was even an addict);

the majority of season 8 felt like the equivalent of naruto filler episodes

while i do think house never got over the events of the season 7 finale i wish we'd seen him struggling with them at least a little while he was in prison. and i wish we'd seen cuddy at least once in season 8. at his funeral perhaps. feels wrong that she wasn't there

huddy in general. i don't know WHAT i'd change - maybe i wouldn't have teased the ship from, oh i don't know, SEASON 1 - i just know that it could've gone better. i'd have still broke them up, absolutely; but the way it ended (and even began, to an extent) in the show left me dissatisfied

lbr house escaping to some other country after running his car into huddy’s house was sort of ridiculous

house in actual band t-shirts

i'm not a fan of the whole selecting-my-employees-with-a-game-show format of season 4

more house wearing cozy-looking hoodies

my god they really ran out of plots for each episode around seasons 5/6/7. the medical stuff really dipped, too - i rewatched a few episodes from season 1 and the medicine was SO solid, leagues above the later seasons, not to mention other medical dramas: the nun with the copper T, the schizophrenic mom who wasn't schizophrenic at all, those were some of my favorite episodes, and they managed to simultaneously weave in those themes of human nature that's REALLY what this show's trying to get at. towards 5/6/7 i felt like these aspects got really messy.

more house chilling at home

that's kind of all i can think of right now! thanks for sending this in, it was very fun to answer. it's also very kind of you to say that about my house posts, especially because they (especially towards the end of the show) were more cyclic ruminations stemming from Real Actual worry/anxiety for house and some level of projection than true analysis. but thanks nevertheless, it's always gratifying to know that people have been reading them!

#dootnoot #this was a very unexpected awesome ask to receive thank you!!!!!!#house md #houseposting #<- tag for all my house thoughts #vaaya moodu #ask #can you tell i just want house to feel content and have a good time.

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nightfall-1409 · 8 months

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sometimes i do in fact just balk at how ppl engage with and around discussions of disability and ableism.

Like ofc, being mindful of language is a nice thing and we should all strive to be nicer but if thats where your advocacy ends thats not great and further, imo esp amongst the disabled people I know just leads to non disabled individuals policing the jokes disabled people make.

implying that disabled characters 'should be' depicted as inferior to their nondisabled counterparts. That's ableism, Textbook ableism according to the APA. Discussions abt how the suffering of disabled characters should be always be central in narratives about them. That's ableism. (especially when its portrayed something that can be overcome.)

condoning disgust and shock responses to physical disabilities as "they're just thinking about themselves and thinking about what if what happened to you happened to them or someone they love". Is so ableist that I still cannot believe that I had to read it

The framing of disability as tragedy or something to be horrified at. Even if you think that saying "Well they're not disgusted by you they're disgusted thinking about if it happened to them" makes it better. It really doesn't, I think it makes it worse. "Well you're already disabled so who gives a shit. What if I, a normal person had that happen to me?" type vibes.

The consistent use of the medical model with characters with disability, where disability is something to be cured or corrected, with a mind to making a character "more normal" (i've also seen this phrased as "make them more human" which is particularly disgusting on top of deeply fucking ableist). This is also a highlight of the APA's discussion around ableism.

And to be clear: I don't go out of my way to yell at people when I see this stuff and I don't think others should either. I don't think that's helpful or productive. I take note of it, sure, especially if I've seen them make shitty comments before, and I might bitch about it out of context to fellow disabled friends, but I don't want to endorse callout culture or posting, it's unkind and imo most people don't want to perpetrate these sorts of attitudes, they're simply societal norms that they've never questioned, and I don't want trying to correct this issue to spiral into accusations of people being awful and spiking off defensiveness.

From Leah Smith's Article on Ableism on the Center for Disability Rights' website

Just like most forms of discrimination, ableism often shows its ugly face from nondisabled people with good intentions. Unfortunately, good intentions never solved any problems. So let’s put our good intentions aside and get to the root of what’s really going on. I believe much of ableism rests on the medical model of disability, in that we have first come to understand disability through the lens of a doctor- something is ‘wrong’ with this person and that ‘something’ needs to be fixed. This is how we are taught to think about disability. However, where we have interpreted the word “wrong” is where we have gone wrong. Just because something is different, does not mean it is bad. We live in a culture in which we have entire television series’ on the medical complications of different types of disabilities. [...] The best way to de-root ableism in our everyday lives, is to ensure that there’s always a seat at the table for those who are like you and those who are not, but also checking ourselves on how we treat people with disabilities once they are at the table. As simple as this sounds, de-rooting ableism is often as simple as just treating disabled people like you would anyone else.

And from NPR's "How to Talk About Disability and Avoid Ableist Tropes"

"Many disabled people subscribe to the social model of disability, which sees disability as the result of the interaction between people living with disabilities and an environment filled with physical, attitudinal, communication and social barriers. While it doesn't deny the reality that comes with living with a disability or the impact it has on an individual, it emphasizes the need for social change in order to accommodate disabled people." "The social model says that a disability is not my inherent problem and that something isn't inherently wrong with me as a person. I think it's more of the community aspect and how you can have diversity in your culture, versus the medical [model] of, like, you have to be fixed, you have to blend in with the norm and this is how we're going to do that to fix you," said McDonnell-Horita. The disability pride movement stemmed from the social model of disability, as it frames disability as a cultural identity and a natural part of human diversity. Disabled people have used pride to affirm the self-worth and agency of disabled individuals and as a tool for combating systemic ableism.

I've got faith that this doesn't have to be the way things remain. I do.

#nightfall chats #if you recognize something i discussed here i expect you to behave yourselves and not be mean to people #Bc im not trying to be Mean to individuals or go after anyone. that's not what i want thats not my point #bc come the fuck on i don't want to keep seeing this stuff

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pjthewitch · 1 year

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some updates to be made

- i’m in a committed longterm relationship with a cool sexy and cannot stress this enough REAL thembo yay

- moved out of my abusive home summer 2021, moved apartments twice since bc bad luck with roommates, but roommate number 3 is cool, plus me and my thembo are gonna start saving to move in together yay

- my first spirit companion (A) turned out to be a scam (figured that out when after 2 years and 4 other companions i still could not feel or interact with that one, and i check up on the blog and discover some red flags that i wasn’t experienced enough to recognize before) oh well, growing pains and all that

- i am not too disabled and chronically ill to work. no idea what’s going on because there are no doctors taking patients in my city. guess i just have to hope i’m not dying. good news is, i’m only a part time crutch user now! probably going to need a wheelchair eventually because my whole body is weak and in pain now, but until i can get my health sorted out, crutches are doable.

- my partner taught me that there’s actually a term for my belief system (i forget what the term is, but if anyone curious, my stance is that all deities are real as long as there are people who believe in them. i would like to also clarify though, that i don’t support the appropriation of closed practices and cultures. just because they’re all real, does not mean they are all for you *cough*white people and wiccans*cough*)

- i’ve been learning about the bible on my own a deconstructing a lot of my religious trauma (still think priests are violently sexy though rip, i guess you could say i have father issues ;) )

- my apartment is super fucking cursed bc of my roommates ex girlfriend. like stubbornly cursed. i’ve been here 6 months trying to get the beings out and the spells broken and they just won’t fucking go.

- still do occasional work with Hades and Loki, but i haven’t felt as much of a pull towards them lately, though they are still very important to me and i don’t plan on ending our working relationships any time soon. Loki has been a wonderful sibling and friend, and Hades will always be the father that accepted me.

- feeling a pull towards luciferianism again, but gonna actually do proper research this time so we don’t have a repeat of last time (breaking news, 14 year old “satanist” tries to summon demons and ends up with a black figure in the corner of his room watching him sleep every night bc he’s an idiot, also leaves the religion upon realizing that the group he was apart of was wildly antisemitic (funfact that experience is why i no longer work in groups, no antisemites for me thanks!!!))

- don’t do reality shifting nymore bc that shit is a cult and also doesn’t work, and also in hindsight was actually dangerously bad for my mental health (constantly dissociating, delusional, + family history of schizophrenia)

- mainly focusing on spirit work now bc why are all my spells so chaotic help

- i don’t to pop-culture spirit work/paganism anymore bc i had a not great experience, but y’all are still valid bc i can’t really have the belief system i have and then pick and choose what counts as a deity, not rly how that works imo

- gotta update my blogs bc i’m no longer a tahno simp (rip in peace, still simpin in my heart)

- also not an update but this has been bothering me. hey non indigenous practitioners, PLEASE STOP RECOMMENDING AND SELLING W*NDIGO SPIRIT COMPANIONS YOU IDIOTIC FUCKS, i don’t care how strong you think your bindings are, your inflated ego and ignorance is putting others in actual danger (love, an actual ojicree person who has experienced the all consuming hunger and destruction those spirits bring and had family driven off the reserve by it)

#witch #witchblr #witchcraft #spiritwork #spirit keeping #hades #loki

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thessalian · 1 year

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Thess vs Improvements

Today was a somewhat better day.

I emailed IT guy’s boss to explain the state of the whole damn mess, and Scruffman followed up with a really significant “SORT IT OUT” when I flagged up that there are going to be bus strikes basically stranding me in this area next week (because like fuck am I walking up the hill to the buses that will still be running. IT guy’s boss said I had to be logged into the laptop for him to access it remotely. Of course, I hadn’t brought the laptop with me because I can’t actually log in from the office anyway. So IT guy’s boss said that he’d work a bit late and log in to have a remote poke-around if I got in not-too-late. Alternatively I could leave it logged in tomorrow morning so he could log in remotely then.

Now, this was mildly annoying because I had to stop for pain meds and a couple of bits of supplies on the way home, but nothing too egregious, if the commute went well. And it ... kinda did! I mean, traffic wasn’t too bad, and the only flaw was ... well, the ‘people are assholes’ flaw. Trying to get the 363 from the big Tesco rather than Elephant and Castle (because that’s where I was stopping for pain meds and supplies; it was convenient), bus was just pulling up as I got to the stop but the bus was crowded already and everyone at the bus stop just lumped themselves around the door so tightly that they didn’t register “There is someone with a cane who might get hurt with all this jostling” and I got shoved around a bit before I decided that fuck it, I’d wait for the next one which was turning up in under five minutes. Laugh’s on those in-a-hurry jerks, though - my bus was way less crowded, so I got two seats to myself the whole way, and actually overtook theirs at Peckham so I ended up ahead of them. I know it’s petty to be thinking that kind of thing, but it’s petty of them to focus so hard on themselves that they don’t notice that they’re in danger of shoving a disabled person off the pavement, so there you go.

Another thing I found out was that the fare-taker gadget that told me yesterday that I did not have enough money on my Oyster card for the bus journey was lying to me. Badly. I checked how much was left on my card when I got onto the 363 and it told me that I had a little over £13 on it. Now, I dropped £10 onto it just this morning, so that means I had at least £3 on it (a bus fare is £1.65, by the way) ... and that’s before you consider that I paid three bus fares before the one that let me see my current balance. TfL ... your tech is shit and you made me have a panic attack.

Anyway, got home about quarter past six (which is a good 45-60 minutes earlier than I’ve managed the last couple of commutes home), texted IT guy’s boss but didn’t really expect him to log on at that point. My brain had put 6pm as the hard cut-off. Apparently IT guy had put his hard cut-off at 7pm. So he noodled around with things for awhile but I think he went AFK and the connection cut off because, for security reasons, it does that when you don’t do anything with it for awhile. (I need to figure out how to keep it from switching itself off when no one’s doing anything with it. I’ll text IT guy’s boss about that in the morning.) Anyway, he didn’t quite get it done but he seems confident and, assuming I can keep it from booting him offline if he steps away too long, he’ll try again tomorrow. It was at least nice that he tried, despite it being past close of play. We’re all desperate to have this done by Friday so that I can actually get some work done despite the bus strike.

On the subject ... the backlog got worse. It’s up to 300-odd reports now, and that was when I left. There’ll be more by the time I get in tomorrow, gods help us. We cannot just keep having more techs do more reports when we have fewer and fewer typists. The elderly sweetheart is off sick again (not that it’s her fault; that’s sympathy italics) and Scruffman actually had to pull reports out of her queue that she’d left in there and hadn’t got around to typing. And of course he lobs it at me, who’s already been left with the long complicated bullshit by both Goblin and Temp. ...I had a word with Temp about that, actually. First she played the ignorance card: “Did I skip those ones?” According to the time stamps, yes. Yes, you did. “I thought it was only [Goblin] who did that!” ...seriously? You’re going to try that? Also, funny how when it’s Goblin leaving the long reports for others, it’s an annoyance to bond over, but when she does it, it’s “Just don’t stress about it”. Thing is ... I have to stress about it. Why? Because if Goblin skips them, and Temp skips them, and the elderly sweetheart is away, and Milady only does the occasional bit of typing when her other duties permit, and our one other staffer who types at all only comes in Mondays and Fridays, and Scruffman a) only types when his other duties permit and b) was on a half-day today ... GUESS WHO’S STUCK WITH ALL OF THEM?!?

It’s still going to be a problem with her, and the one bad thing about eventual working from home is that I won’t be able to confront her except for once a week. Still, at least I won’t have to deal with Goblin’s long-suffering sighs.

Right. Food. At least I didn’t cry at any point today. There is a sinus headache-turned-migraine, but I have painkillers. It’s not great, but it’s better than yesterday. I will take it.

#Thess has a day job #Thess has a commute

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