when i was 15 and in wilderness therapy i self flagellated for “being attention seeking” the staff gently explained to me that “attention seeking is really just a cruel way of describing *connection seeking*” and then proceeded to tell me that even tho all i really needed was connection, she had decided it was best for me if she socially isolated me anyway and made me eat my dinner alone by the light of my headlamp in the snow while everyone else sat in a canvas tent heated by a wood stove.
"drug seeking" as a patient label one of the most dogshit stupid concepts of all time. fuuuck everybody look out this guy came in here expecting medical treatment. better watch out in case he goes to a restaurant and starts food seeking
This Canada day let's celebrate the Hudson's Bay Company once owning 5% of the earth's total landmass now being relegated to a shitty kiosk in select Canadian Tire locations. Good riddance.
I'm reading a study on how nurses define the term 'drug seeking', and what makes them more likely to put the 'drug-seeker' label on a patient's charts and. well. let me just throw down some quotes
"Needy, unable to cope" (<- you try coping with chronic pain)
"Comfort seeking" (<- you mean.. having a preference for not being in pain.. how criminal)
"Using or trying to obtain drugs on a long-term, chronic
base" (<- do you understand what 'chronic pain' means.)
"Asking for pain med then returning to sleep."
"States he’s level 10 pain, but does not appear to be in pain (or ‘5= on appearance)." (<- it is well-known that chronic pain patients tend not to display pain in the same way as acute pain patients)
"Dramatic response to pain" (<- notice how this directly contradicts the comment above. you cannot win)
"Gets IV med, then leaves unit to smoke or walk around" (<- wow requiring medication and then going off to do something you needed pain meds to be able to do is so suspicious)
the article itself put it best when it says: “some comments depict patients trying to apply sound pain management principles, such as continuing to take medication for persistent pain”. no wonder all the other literature on the matter says that women of colour are the most likely group to be labelled drug-seeking. this shit is entirely vibes-based (read: based on the prejudices of nurses and doctors)
forgive the version of you that didn’t know what to do and could not have foreseen what the right choice was, if there even was one. forgive the version of you that made a choice and regretted it.
much has been said already about the supreme court case and trans rights but today i'm thinking extra hard about trans kids who have been sent into the psych system for any reason, who have to bear the lack of autonomy innate to it but the extra sting of being denied the right to your name and your gender in sex-segregated facilities, by transphobic staff, etc.
i'm thinking extra hard about how we've ended up where we are, with trans kids at the center of so much hatred, because children are not seen as people with interiority or an ability to narrate their own experiences. we've decided it's alright to lock children up for horrible diagnoses that psychs throw around like they're nothing, to strip their autonomy completely and force them through humiliation, invasions of privacy, and endless torment by "professionals" whose power over every waking moment of their lives has no end. these things cannot be separated.
i'm thinking today of every trans child in a wilderness camp, in a residential treatment facility, in psych wards and PHP/IOP programs, especially those whose transness has been tied to unwellness. fuck the psych industry and the troubled teen industry and transphobia forever
the "empathy fatigue" stuff is also very revealing because when you examine health professionals' self-reporting on the matter there is a specific type of person they describe losing empathy for- unsurprisingly, it's people with particularly chronic health issues and disability, drug users, people who "refuse to take care of themselves" and especially anyone with a health condition perceived to be "their own fault". very often what they describe as "empathy fatigue" is actually just the mask slipping on the seething contempt they already held
its interesting being a weird autistic tranny as a kid and letting yourself get accustomed to the idea that youre just some magically antisocial loser who is "introverted" and is happy being alone and then you grow up and realize that actually you love being social you love hugs you love going out and hate being alone you just hated all of the social opportunities available to you growing up so much you let yourself romanticize solitude as a slightly less miserable state than interacting with people
you never hear people talking about how newly out t boys only wear like funky patterned button ups from targets little boys section the way you hear ppl ragging on trans women for getting an amazon skirt
I don’t hate. I don’t hate anyone. I don’t hate cops. I don’t hate Trump. I don’t hate Nazis. My beliefs are composed thus:
"I don’t hate. I don’t hate anyone. I don’t hate cops. I don’t hate Trump. I don’t hate Nazis. My beliefs are composed thus:
First, that we should help each other.
And second, that we should protect one another.
I never want to see anyone get hurt. I never want to see good people, standing up for what they believe in, gunned down in the street. What we all saw happen to Renee Good and Alex Pretti is my worst nightmare.
It was the kind of thing I had feared for a long time, after dealing with officers who could be reckless, who could be bullies, who could be violent. But fear is not hate. Sadness is not hate. Wanting people to live is not hate.
So, when I was standing in the street on July 4th, 2025, in plain view with reflective safety strips and high visibility clothing, what I saw right in front of my eyes was my worst nightmare.
When I saw Lieutenant Thomas Gross stop pursuing and point his gun at the back of a running, unarmed protester, like he testified, I was terrified. As a firearms instructor and a United States Marine Corps veteran, I understood what I was seeing. I knew what it meant for someone to lean forward into a gun, like he testified, to prepare for recoil.
As the evidence shows, I did not want to hurt anyone. I never had the intent to hurt anyone. I tried my best to avoid hurting anyone. It is impossible to say that I was trying to ambush anyone or planning any violence. I was shocked, and surprised, and saddened. I am so grateful for what didn’t happen. I am so grateful that we are not here mourning another death and tragedy. Another Alex Pretti. Another Renee Good. Another Botham Jean. Another Manuel Teran. Another Atatiana Jefferson. Another Philando Castile.
Now, 22 people have been arrested, have been persecuted, have been tortured, for what?
For nothing.
None of these people really did anything.
And none of these people have anything to do with what happened with me.
This is wrong. This is mass punishment. This is collective punishment. This is guilt by association. This is injustice.
Back in 1895, the white supremacist and U.S. Senator, Pitchfork Ben Tillman, gave a speech to the Constitutional Convention of South Carolina on how to use injustice to take power. He said, “how did we recover our liberty? By fraud and violence.” We tried to overcome the 30,000 majority by honest means which was a mathematical impossibility. After burying these indignities for eight years, life became worthless.”
This is how men take power over others. By injustice, by fraud and violence.
That history matters because injustice has always been dangerous. It does not only harm the person standing in court. It spreads. It teaches people to be afraid. It teaches people that the government can decide who is guilty first and look for reasons afterward.
First, they covered up and hid evidence.
Second, they banned every Black juror so that no one would question the police.
Third, they told me I had no right to protect myself or anyone else and they told me I wasn’t even allowed to say the word: self-defense.
As you heard at the trial, they tortured their own witnesses. American citizens were tortured and terrorized and medically neglected. Three men died in jail last week, by the way. And now, a 24-year old has had a heart attack. A 58-year-old woman said she would die in this case. Mothers, fathers, teachers, students, package workers, programmers and engineers persecuted and tortured in this case.
People are being treated as if their lives do not matter. All of this is bigger than me. I know I am the person standing here. I know I am the person being judged. But I also know that a case like this can become a warning to everyone else: that if you speak, if you protest, if you try to protect someone, if you are associated with the wrong idea, you can be turned into a symbol instead of treated like a human being.
Nothing saddens me more than when I think about all of these different people and their different families and communities, and how they have suffered, and how unfairly they have been treated, just like me.
Whatever is taken from me is taken from you.
It may be these 22 strangers now, but it will be you tomorrow.
On June 9th of this year, the President of the Southern Poverty Law Center testified that hate has migrated into the government. Into the government. The hate is right here.
The government, in it’s secret motion to give me a life sentence, calls me the embodiment of Antifa. What does that even mean? I am not a member of a group called Antifa. I am not part of any terrorist organization. There is no group called Antifa. Everyone knows that, but this government is so blinded by hate, they’ve arrested 22 good people for nothing. They want to bury me with an idea. This idea that they hate is the very idea of being against fascism.
What kind of people are not against fascism?
What kind of people are not against the hate and war and genocide and concentration camps that the Nazi’s brought upon the world?
What kind of people would not agree to “no kings” and “no Fuhrers?”
The hate has migrated into the government. Now that hate is taking power over me. It is taking power over you, over your words and your ideas.
When will you be called a domestic terrorist, too?
When they killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti, they went on TV and they called them domestic terrorists, the same day, within the hour.
When will that happen to you?
When I was staying in my home city of Dallas for 11 days, I did fear then I might die at any moment from a government that I think is hateful and vindictive. I did not run because I wanted to escape responsibility. I stayed because I wanted to survive long enough to do the right thing.
I don’t fear for myself. I fear for all of you.
What will you do in this time of great failures and great injustices? What will you do?
another recurring problem at Johnson County Jail is that, not only are Meagan Morris and Autumn Hill being held in the men's prison - they are being strip searched by male guards daily. Meagan just told me she got strip searched. They're not allowed out of their cells anyway, so this is just deliberate sexual abuse by Johnson County Jail.
gummygunk
origamiaround
