[feministism]

[fairycosmos]

look. i don’t think my stretch marks are beautiful. i don’t think they’re tiger stripes or natural tattooos. i don’t think my acne is beautiful. i don’t think the bags under my eyes are beautiful. i just think they’re human. and i don’t think i have to be beautiful all of the time in order to be accepted and loved and sucessful. i don’t think every small detail of my outer appearence needs to be translated into prettiness.

[serotonin-sunrise]

fun fact: this POV is actually called “body neutrality” and it’s SO MUCH more accessible/realistic for a lot of people. it’s based on the idea that the way we look is the least interesting/important thing about who we are, and that our bodies are worthy of respect regardless if they fit the mold of the current beauty ideals.

[untiloblivions]

thinking about “you haven’t met all the people who will love you” and like!!! you also haven’t found all the things that will make you happy!!!! there will always be new authors and musicians and artists whose work you will one day discover and love!!!! there will always be new hobbies and skills for you to learn and feel fulfilled by!!! there will always be new things around the corner that will bring sudden and unexpected happiness!!!!!!!!!!!

[sustancy]

[aardvaark]

reminder #1

this is for me, but maybe its for you too. its absolutely devastating to become aware that other people had loving & supportive parents when you didnt, that people were cared for when you werent. its hard to allow yourself to process it, but you deserved to feel loved and so did they. only difference was they got what they should have, and that is HARD AS FUCK to deal with, if you didnt. dont be mad at them tho, dont despise them for living how you were meant to live. one day you will get the softness and love you should have, and maybe that doesnt make up for anything, but directing your well-earned anger towards people who dont deserve it isnt making up for anything either. 

[mostofmylifeisnotthere]

With Mother & Father’s day coming up, please remember you are not required to be grateful to abusive parents. Please remember,

Don’t break no-contact.

Don’t let family guilt you into breaking no-contact.

Don’t feel guilty for living w/ them as an adult, you’re doing your best.

Don’t feel you’re betraying yourself if you have to give ‘appeasement gifts.’

DO put your mental & physical wellbeing first, as we know they won’t.

Maybe get yourself something, so many of us had to be our own parent anyway.

[tattsunsan]

GOOD LUCK ON YOUR FINAL EXAMS

GOOD LUCK ON YOUR ENTRANCE EXAMS

GOOD LUCK ON YOUR ORAL PRESENTATIONS

GOOD LUCK ON YOUR GIANT ESSAYS

GOOD LUCK GOOD LUCK GOOD LUCK GOOD LUCK GOOD LUCK GOOD LUCK GOOD LUCK GOOD LUCK GOOD LUCK GOOD LUCK

d(^u^)b

[parentless-suggestions]

Someday I will have my own place. My world won’t be confined to my room. I will stumble sleepily through the house in the morning, opening the blinds. I will sit out in the backyard and look at the stars. I will go out whenever I want to. I will survive long enough to have that.

[flowerais-deactivated20211031]

your future self loves you. they will look through old photos of you with affection, not disgust, nor embarrassment. they wish they could tell you stories of your future, of how much you’ll change, of the people you’ll meet, of how you’ll eventually learn to accept yourself, then love yourself. they will read your diary entries and poems and favourite lyrics, heart aching, tears in their eyes. if only you knew...

your future self loves you. if only they could show you. they are living proof. you’ll turn out okay after all. they wish they were there to console you, dance with you, and make you write it a hundred times: “I AM LOVED”. they will listen to playlists you made, just to experience you again. they will write you a letter - of forgiveness, longing, reassurance. you will never read it. but you will know.

[poikaboo]

hey folks; i know we’re all going thru it right now, so I made a carrd masterpost of some stuff to comfort us all. there’s some games, some mental health stuff, and all the crisis lines i could find. i hope it helps; please spread this if you think your followers might find it useful

[love-notes-to-survivors]

I’m really tired of apologising for or being ashamed of the symptoms of an illness I didn’t ask for. I’m doing my absolute best but honestly every now and then it’s just going to manifest anyway. And I can’t keep hating myself or beating down on myself for it.

[windwardstar]

In case anyone wants some perspective on how utterly random triggers can be. I haven’t lived in a house with a garage door in four-ish years. Right now at this moment, I honestly can’t recall what they sound like, except something metallic moving and rather clanky.

There was one on tv. I wasn’t even paying attention to it, I had my headphones on and was actively trying to tune the show out. My ears picked up on the sound of the garage door, and a jolt of adrenaline shot through my body as I grabbed my laptop and moved to get out of my seat and run to my room.

I realized what happened after about two seconds.

The sound is gone from my ears, but my heart is still racing and I’m waiting for the door to the house to open, to hear the jingling of my mother’s keys and her footsteps moving through the house. My muscles are still tense and I’m fighting the urge to run to my room and stick a board in front of the door.

For years, the sound of a garage door was my warning to pack up what I was doing quickly and retreat to my room if I was out of it.

I can’t remember the sound of the garage door right now, but I can’t tell my brain to stop trying to react to it.

[windwardstar]

This can be reblogged, if anyone was wondering. I wrote up this post with the intention that hopefully people who read it and didn’t really get triggers would understand a bit.

[the-real-seebs]

So, a thing that’s particularly important here: The trigger here is not the bad experience itself.

[jumpingjacktrash]

after my super funtime medical adventure, i had to change all my bath products, because my brain had associated the scent of them with being terrified and in extreme pain.

these were products i had chosen myself because i liked the smell. and they got connected to the medical phobia because i was using them to wash off the hospital reek and the fear sweat and so forth. i don’t know why they became a trigger. maybe because washing off the hospital smell didn’t make me not in pain. maybe because their ‘fresh pine ocean breeze bluegreen spicy stuff’ smell didn’t really replace the hospital stench, just mingled with it.

but for whatever reason, smelling these objectively nice soaps made me do flashbacks and get all hopeless and wobbly. so they had to go.

triggers are random. they’re often something that was simply present during a trauma, and you can’t guess what they’ll be. no one who hasn’t heard me explain this would ever associate suave naturals ocean breeze body wash with unbearable abdominal pain. so i guess the takeaways here are twofold:

- if you have triggers, remember other people can’t predict them, and don’t expect to be protected from them all the time. that’s up to you.

- if you don’t have triggers, don’t assume you can judge what a ‘real’ trigger is, and if someone asks you to accomodate them, don’t be a dick about it. even if you don’t want to make that accomodation, decline politely and apologize, don’t disparage their request.

[astronomical-bagel]

@ that one anon, I hope that this helps you understand!

[love-notes-to-survivors]

The more you're struggling, the kinder I need you to be to yourself. It's going to make it unbelievably harder and more painful for you if you're beating yourself up for what you can't do right now, or blaming and hating yourself for all the ways that your struggle is inconveniencing your life.

[mockiatoh]

You can’t deserve a person’s love. You’ll drive yourself crazy thinking like that. They either love you, or they don’t. That doesn’t mean you weren’t good enough for them to love you, because love isn’t something you earn by being good enough. It isn’t something that can be quantified or doled out. Don’t blame yourself for not being loved how you need to, just teach yourself how to look for love where love lives.

[mockiatoh]

This isn’t just about romantic love, or even skewed towards romantic love, although it does apply there too. One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to accept is that my mother simply wasn’t someone who was capable of loving me, and there is no version of me that I could have ever been that would have earned that love. But with acceptance came healing. I was able to love myself more instead of resenting myself for not being more than any one person could be.

[mockiatoh]

Are you listening? Even love for yourself isn’t earned. It is a kindness you give yourself.

[thepowerwithin]

“Be the sun that illuminates even the darkest of nights. Be the love that conquers even the strongest of shadows.”

— Nicole Addison @thepowerwithin

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

Don't become so afraid of being annoying that you don't allow yourself to be anything at all.

[flowerais-deactivated20211031]

remember to be alive. spend less time scrolling and getting trapped in old thoughts...you won’t find what you need there. it’s time to be making new things, thinking new thoughts, loving and appreciating as much as you can, and experiencing the life in front of you.