When I'm knitting or crocheting I often stretch the wool/yarn (acrylic DK) until it loses most of its stretch and is about 3 times smaller, and then use it. I can't remember exactly why I started doing this but so far it's worked great, it often feels nicer for me to work with, it doesn't stretch as I use it, the finished piece often stays about the same size as when I made it because I've already gotten rid of most of the stretch, when I have to frog it it doesn't ruin the yarn because it's already been thinned, the finished product can be lighter which helps with acrylic not being breathable.
Also, often the thickness of the acrylic DK can vary massively even within a ball. So I often stretch it to get them all the same thickness. It puts me at ease in a weird way.
But I've tried to find out if anyone else does this or if there's anything wrong with doing it, and I can't find any information. All the information is about how to get ruined yarn back to normal. Or it accidentally becoming like this (unevenly, when frogged mainly). What about if it's intentional?
Does anyone else do this? Is there anything wrong with doing it?
I know I could use a lighter weight yarn instead of making DK be like it, but I specifically like having it have very little stretch left, and DK is cheaper where I am. The stretch coming from the stitches rather than the yarn is preferable to me for some reason, it makes me worry less about it getting damaged?
My new therapist is actually good at her job thank goodness! She's not judgy (old ones were judgy about the very things I came there for and never in a productive way), she's very familiar with how CAHMs can be, she actually helps me figure things out, it's very collaborative, not just them ranting at me for 5 minutes straight about something purely off of one description or label or word and nothing else (somehow abandoning all other info they knew each time) and getting it wrong. She's not afraid to admit when she doesn't know stuff. It's great. I actually feel safe telling her shit. I felt so insane and guilty for feeling unsafe and unwilling to share with them.
me when other people tag me in things: this person??? thought about me???? i'm so flattered??????? 🥺💕🥺💕🥺💕🥺💕
me when i consider tagging someone in a post: i am annoying!!!! i am overstepping every single boundary!!!! i am making an absolute fool out of myself!!!!!!
This is maybe really weird but I'm curious if anyone knows why this happened and I just want to express it somewhere.
Tw, a lot of this is about me as a kid (7) getting aroused for the first time. Nothing was done to me and this is a relatively innocent story, but i would still personally find this uncomfortable to read about if it wasn't about myself. Just to be clear, while I am discussing some of my first sexual thoughts/feelings, which I am recently learning may have come earlier than is usual(?), this is about me as a child and is ultimately a very innocent thing. No different than feeling hunger or tiredness, just a bodily function.
I was never spanked or hit as a child, and I only knew what that was through paintings and little ceramic sculptures, and then at some point my mum telling us that unfortunately some parents did that to small children. This obviously upset me and I always thought that was very cruel.
I'm not sure why but there were quite a few old art pieces and ceramics showing characters being spanked in charity shops and antique shops when I was a kid, and we went to them often. So much chances of seeing these was higher I guess. Oddly, even though I had been told and seen that it mainly seemed to happen to very little children, these pieces always showed people who, while looking younger than the person spanking them, looked at the very least bigger than a toddler or young child. Given the type of pieces they were I now think they were older children-teenagera being spanked by their parents, not both adults. But at 7 years old since the characters looked older than me they were all adults to me.
Even looking back I do think the pieces were verging on pedophilic with how oddly sexual they did seem. But I can't tell if that was a projection.
For some reason, which I still have not figured out, these pieces did not connect in my brain as being the same thing used as a punishment for children. This seemed fun. It exited me for some reason. And I later realised, it aroused me. I think it was actually the first thing that did. Maybe it was because it was my first time seeing nudity that wasn't just my parents when they were trying to get changed and I was too clingy to leave them alone?
The one doing the spanking would often be fully dressed (often it was a woman and she would be wearing many layers of skirts and a bonnet) and the one being spanked (often a boy) would be wearing a thin button up shirt with his trousers pulled down. Maybe it was this difference that did it? Maybe if was because they'd so vividly paint him red? Maybe that triggered something instinctive.
I remember in particular seeing a cuckoo clock, I think it might have been in a show not actually in person but I cannot remember, where on every hour the characters would pop out and she'd spank him and instead of the cuckoo sound or a bell chiming the sound would be his cries. This specifically was the first time I got fully aroused.
Why would I be interested in this? All my interest in kink/BDSM seems to have come from this, but why did it affect me so much to begin with? The idea of being hit or hitting someone itself didn't arouse me all that much then or now it was specifically watching it happen. Not that it doesn't turn me on at all now. And again I want to be so clear, this was a very different thing from parents hurting their children to me. I always thought that was wrong and it made me very angry. At a certain point when I did connect them as being the same thing I started having a moral panic but then justified my enjoyment of the pieces with it not being real or involving any real people, and deciding that this was a consensual act and not a true punishment, and that they were a couple of sorts not a parent and child. I wouldn't let myself enjoy it until I'd created a convincing enough backstory as to how this was consentual, everyone was of age and there was no incest. I'm not even sure how I knew those things were important, but I suppose it good that I did in general.
Why would I enjoy seeing this despite how much I hated the same thing in any other context? How was my 7 year old self able to have this specific nuance unprompted? Why would I invent BDSM to myself, I had no prior knowledge of it.
What happened in my brain to cause me to just be kinky for no apparent reason? There has not been a time where I have felt arousal and not been kinky. Why?
I remember when I was younger, anytime I watched a movie where the characters have to kill a scary monster/alien, I always thought the act of killing it was intended to be part of the horror. Like there’s this amazing creature that we’ve never seen before, and maybe under different circumstances we could’ve coexisted with it, but it’s trying to attack you and you have to defend yourself, but by destroying it you also destroy the ability to ever understand it and that’s sad and is supposed to make you feel conflicted.
It was not until well into my adulthood that I realized most people do not have complicated feelings about movies where people have to kill a scary alien monster, nor is that necessarily meant to be part of the narrative (unless it very obviously is). They just want the scary thing to die because it’s scary. I don’t have a real conclusion to this I just started thinking about it for some reason.
“It just means you have to work double as hard as most people!”
Well maybe I don’t WANT to work double as hard as abled people!! Maybe I deserve a BREAK!! Maybe I’ve been working MORE THAN double as hard for MY WHOLE LIFE and it’s led me to immense burnout & caused me to develop several MORE disabilities!! Maybe I should be ACCOMMODATED so I don’t have to KILL MY BODY AND BRAIN over trying to do what abled people can do!! Maybe I DON’T have to work double as hard!! Maybe if there’s the option to let me NOT work double as hard, I should have it, because I’m already working double as hard JUST TO SURVIVE!!
Why do you think disabled people deserve less rest than mentally & physically abled people?
#i appreciate how genuine and non-judgemental this comic feels
#like left one is not upset at right one for caring while being powerless
#and right one seems genuinely distraught and not performative
I'm glad the facial expressions are coming across accurately!
It can feel so absurd to say gosh I hope the torment maze removes some fire and rusty nails soon, but alas, sometimes that's all one can do.
everymorning: i think im about to die. i think im going to die. im actually going to die. this is it. im going to die. im going to die immediately.
every single night: lock in. OK. Lock In. Change your Life. I love you. Lock in. This is going to be big. I’m going to change the world. Ready? I love you. Lock in. I have an idea. Lock in.
What does it mean when one of your best friends (we're both queer, woman adjacent people) confesses they have feelings for you, the two of you seriously talk about a long-term relationship and then decide it's too complicated and you are better as friends and then months later while their drunk and then again when their hungover the next morning, they let you *cradle* them from behind while they hold your hand tightly around one of their tits.
although I also sometimes think one of the things keeping me tethered to this world is the knowledge that I could leave. I hate being trapped so it's oddly comforting to know I could escape in this way.
I've got to go to a friend's birthday and it's a costume party and all my costume options are so bad and are low-key sending me into a self hatred spiral. Like I feel worse about my body than I have in literal years. And it's just a costume for a birthday party. I want to say I'm sick and not go but it's such a big birthday for her.
And I need to finish the present I'm making her. Which she probably won't even appreciate that much tbh because idk if she'd be able to understand how much time and effort it took and the logic behind certain creative choices with it.
