[disease]

JENNY HOLZER / SURVIVAL / 1983-85 [cast aluminium plaque | 5 ½ x 9 ½”]

[phlebotomies]

choices made in anger is such a crazy image. if you know what i'm talking about

[phlebotomies]

i'm gonna thrup

[what-even-is-thiss]

If nobody ever explained this to you, if someone you see a lot does something you like and you never ever tell them that, they might think you don’t like them or don’t like the things they do for you.

[what-even-is-thiss]

If you like your sister’s cooking and have never ever told her that, she may very well think that you hate her cooking. If you like it when your friend drives you places and you never ever thank them, they might think you’re not grateful even if you are. If you like it when your partner does this or that thing for you they won’t know that unless you tell them.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Tell people in your life hey thanks for driving me, that was a great dinner, I like your singing, thanks for helping me with that. They don’t automatically know that you appreciate what they do.

[gaytanic-panic]

[mysillycomics]

:0)

[katelyn-danger]

Hi, do you have any resources for if what to do if you think you’re the puppy girl the rest of the polycule is going to dump?

Build mastery over teeny tiny, then increasingly larger tasks.

Look up genuine self-care tips. Clean *and* groom your body.

Go for a walk outside if you can.

Call a friend. Don't text them.

Ask someone else if they need help and figure out how you can help them

Eat a full meal if possible. Slowly.

Watch a nature documentary instead of your shows.

Listen to a new album. All the way through. Eyes closed.

Wash your sheets.

Research what other people with your mental illness do to get through their day.

It's hard, but the little things snowball into big things. You feel despised and useless because you're out of practice helping other people, taking care of yourself, and reflecting on how you really feel and what you really want. You're using cheap distractions to avoid the fact that you haven't done anything meaningful in a while. It's okay to ask for help, but you need to help yourself and help others too. Even little things show that you're aware of other people's needs and feelings.

[katelyn-danger]

Also remember that while personal accountability and personal responsibility is important, it can only take you so far. I don't wanna say that if you do everything on this list, your life will improve and you'll have no problems whatsoever. You can't 'clean your room' yourself out of a world that wants you dead, but a clean room does make it a little easier to bear.

All self help boils down to maintenance. Eat. Read. Exercise. Tidy. Socialize. Meditate. Repeat. We unfortunately need a lot of maintenance, and it is easier to wash a single dish than it is to dismantle capitalism. A lot of it also feels selfish, but it's good to be selfish sometimes. I brush my teeth because I like having clean teeth and it makes my life easier in the long term, not so other people don't have to smell my bad breath.

And it's cringe. It's cringe and lame and boring. Nobody's gonna put you on a magazine cover for taking a mental health walk. But you gotta do it.

[katelyn-danger]

Sorry I keep thinking about this ask and finding that I have more to say.

Know that your friends love you. Know that your friends care about you. Know that most of them don't consider you a burden, and the ones that do consider you a burden, consider you a burden worth bearing. My wife is physically disabled, and there have been times in our relationship when I have been completely financially dependent on their call center job, and also times when they've been completely dependent on my machining job.

We divide our chores. We talk about our feelings. We talk about our day and stupid arguments we saw online and funny memes. We also argue over chores and feelings and have different opinions on the stupid arguments we see, but we get over it because we love each other and we can both see that the other person is putting in the emotional effort to get better. We weather the times when the other person is doing rough because we know that in the long term our relationship is worth it.

It's also okay for some of your friends to not have anything to give, or for them to only have the capacity to support you for a short period of time, or for the circumstances in which they had the energy to care for you change suddenly. If you are in a girl's support network, and you're not talking to the other members of her support network about what you're all doing, it's easy to feel resentment towards her, and like you're all just "putting up with it". You gotta remember to take time for yourself too, or you'll burn out and suddenly you're the one who will need cared for.

Mutual aid requires that the aid be mutual. It's up to you to communicate and decide the terms of what that means. You can reasonably re-negotiate those terms at any time. If the relationship lacks reciprocity, it's just charity that grows resentment. There's no universal solution for any of this, but you can always talk it out. You can always ask for help. You can always cut your losses and dip, not everything works out.

[antigonickpdf]

our longing for inconvenience by hanif abdurraqib (id in alt)

[6i]

it takes years to develop your craft. do not romanticize the idea of an ‘overnight success’. be a student. grow organically. get really good. hate your work. start over. find new ways to express the same ideas. the student becomes the master. your time will come.

[thesweetiepienovels]

Some is better than none. Some is better than none. Some is better than none. Walking for three minutes, is better than nothing. Drinking a glass of water and eating a snack, is better than nothing. Wiping down the counter, is better than nothing. Small things are not nothing. Small things are not nothing. Small things are not nothing. You don’t have to achieve grand things if all you’re capable of right now is the smaller things. They are still achievements. Don’t do nothing just because you don’t think you’re capable of doing bigger things, just do something you’re capable of today. 

[through-gayas-eyes]

"One of the coolest examples of creative living that I’ve seen in recent years, for instance, came from my friend Susan, who took up figure skating when she was forty years old. To be more precise, she actually already knew how to skate. She had competed in figure skating as a child and had always loved it, but she’d quit the sport during adolescence when it became clear she didn’t have quite enough talent to be a champion. (Ah, lovely adolescence—when the “talented” are officially shunted off from the herd, thus putting the total burden of society’s creative dreams on the thin shoulders of a few select souls, while condemning everyone else to live a more commonplace, inspiration-free existence! What a system . . . )

For the next quarter of a century, my friend Susan did not skate. Why bother, if you can’t be the best? Then she turned forty. She was listless. She was restless. She felt drab and heavy. She did a little soul-searching, the way one does on the big birthdays. She asked herself when was the last time she’d felt truly light, joyous, and—yes—creative in her own skin. To her shock, she realized that it had been decades since she’d felt that way. In fact, the last time she’d experienced such feelings had been as a teenager, back when she was still figure skating. She was appalled to discover that she had denied herself this life-affirming pursuit for so long, and she was curious to see if she still loved it.

So she followed her curiosity. She bought a pair of skates, found a rink, hired a coach. She ignored the voice within her that told her she was being self-indulgent and preposterous to do this crazy thing. She tamped down her feelings of extreme self-consciousness at being the only middle-aged woman on the ice, with all those tiny, feathery nine-year-old girls.

She just did it.

Three mornings a week, Susan awoke before dawn and, in that groggy hour before her demanding day job began, she skated. And she skated and skated and skated. And yes, she loved it, as much as ever. She loved it even more than ever, perhaps, because now, as an adult, she finally had the perspective to appreciate the value of her own joy. Skating made her feel alive and ageless. She stopped feeling like she was nothing more than a consumer, nothing more than the sum of her daily obligations and duties. She was making something of herself, making something with herself.

It was a revolution. A literal revolution, as she spun to life again on the ice—revolution upon revolution upon revolution . . .

Please note that my friend did not quit her job, did not sell her home, did not sever all her relationships and move to Toronto to study seventy hours a week with an exacting Olympic-level skating coach. And no, this story does not end with her winning any championship medals. It doesn’t have to. In fact, this story does not end at all, because Susan is still figure skating several mornings a week—simply because skating is still the best way for her to unfold a certain beauty and transcendence within her life that she cannot seem to access in any other manner. And she would like to spend as much time as possible in such a state of transcendence while she is still here on earth."

From : BIG MAGIC - creative living beyond fear. By Elizabeth Gilbert.

[mortalityplays]

hi, a lot of you need a perspective reset

the average human lifespan globally is 70+ years

taking the threshold of adulthood as 18, you are likely to spend at least 52 years as a fully grown adult

at the age of 30 you have lived less than one quarter of your adult life (12/52 years)

'middle age' is typically considered to be between 45-65

it is extremely common to switch careers, start new relationships, emigrate, go to college for the first or second time, or make other life-changing decisions in middle age

it's wild that I even have to spell it out, but older adults (60+) still have social lives and hobbies and interests.

you can still date when you get old. you can still fuck. you can still learn new skills, be fashionable, be competitive. you can still gossip, you can still travel, you can still read. you can still transition. you can still come out.

young doesn't mean peaked. you're inexperienced in your 20s! you're still learning and practicing! you're developing social skills and muscle memory that will last decades!

there are a million things to do in the world, and they don't vanish overnight because an imaginary number gets too big

[hillbillyoracle]

New Free Minizine: "Recovering from Reactivity"

[[ get a printable and read only version here (it's free) ]]

[rivetgoth]

Perhaps my genuine biggest piece of socializing advice as someone who spent years of my life feeling wholly incapable of positively interacting with other people is to just ask the other person questions about themselves. Like that’s it. People love answering questions. They really love thoughtful follow-up questions. They love feeling like someone else is interested in them, their interests, their lives, their opinions. At some point in your questioning they will say something that reminds you of a funny / interesting story. Tell it. You will be remembered as the person who asks a lot of questions, makes people feel like they matter, and tells good stories. boom. done.

[transiting]

don’t make other people’s decisions for them. apply for the job you don’t think you’ll get. let them decide if you have the skills they’re looking for. tell that person you like them even though you think they’re out of your league. let them decide if they like you. stop trying to predict and control everything. bring what you have to the table. let the rest go.

[dragonflavoredcake]

Rejection sensitivity dysphoria is the weirdest ADHD symptom ever. Like hello yes my weird brain chemistry manifests as Whiny Crybaby Disorder

[eroscestlavie]

btw this is not a universally agreed upon "symptom" of ADHD and I think many people would benefit from treating it as part & parcel of ADHD's broad, foundational trait: inability to do emotional regulation. A feeling of total rejection and terror at failure is a treatable and manageable issue. For me, I found it easier to manage once recognized that the reason I was having these reactions is that like many other emotional states, I couldn't "exit" an emotional state related to feelings of rejection once I was in it.

imo way too many people are going through life thinking they're just going to be sensitive to rejection for life because of how some people (not OP, but definitely plenty of ADHD influencers) talk about this "symptom." I don't think it's terribly productive that it gets constantly cordoned off as its own thing. like a lot of ADHD, while it sucks to have it shape your life up to the point you realize what it is, it is indeed possible to exposure therapy & DBT your way out of it.

signed: someone with ADHD who used to not be able to take critical feedback from anyone every and is now a freelancer and gets critical feedback three times before breakfast. still workin on it but it's very possible to go from "whiny crybaby disorder" to "mostly functional, if slightly sensitive ADHD adult"

[grison-in-space]

I also think it's worth noting that rejection sensitive dysphoria is most parsimoniously interpreted as a trauma reaction—a learned response to a potential signals of social relationship deteriorating for reasons the ADHD person can't necessarily control. Social relationships are incredibly important to humans, and ADHD (especially undiagnosed and undisclosed) really sets us up to fail. This is especially true given that perceived social blame for stressful situations is a massive factor in transmuting stressful experiences into lasting trauma, and ADHDers are typically judged to be personally responsible for the failures that happen as a result of attentional, time awareness, or memory failures.

What conceptualizing RSD as a category of trauma response to social triggers does is allow us to treat it like any other trauma response. It pulls RSD out of the bioessentialist framework and into the realm of injuries that can be treated, learned associations that can be unlearned. It turns out that the same techniques that help with PTSD triggers, including the same damn meds (hi, clonidine), are effective for helping reduce RSD. (It also explains why RSD is also common in autistic people, who often have a similar history of social error and narratives of self blame, without requiring inherent neurological differences.)

It's a common kind of stress injury, basically. It's not Whiny Crybaby Disorder; it's more like shin splints. Getting better shoes for running, being careful about the ground you run on, and letting the splints heal properly can all help make shin splints go away when you've been running barefoot on concrete roads your whole life.

[i-am-a-fish]

don't be mean to yourself that's you

[i-am-a-fish]

you live there

[tiktoks-i-enjoyed]

[itsmarmieee]

yo!! I’m a disabled person (thankfully it’s pretty mild, I can still walk and even dance with some extra effort). Other disabled people, this is so important for us to start doing young if we can! It’s easier to maintain muscle than it is to build it.