~

[problematiq]

europeans when countries sing in their native language

europeans when france sings in french

[vierschanzentournee]

Damiano David + champagne at the post-ESC press conference

[missmentelle]

How to Tell if You Grew Up in a Toxic Household

Most of us have a pretty solid handle on what child abuse looks like. If your parents hit you, starved you, or were sexually inappropriate toward you, it’s relatively easy to figure out that you grew up in a toxic environment. But not all toxic environments are obvious. It’s possible to grow up in a violence-free, middle-class environment, and still have experienced toxic parenting that haunts you into adulthood.  For instance: - Your parents treated you like their therapist, and burdened you with adult problems. Children are not emotionally equipped to handle situations like a parent’s suspected infidelity, family financial problems or a parent’s own experience of abuse; they haven’t developed the emotional tools to cope with these situations, and they aren’t in a position to do much more than panic. In healthy families, parents shield their children from information that they aren’t ready to handle, and they find ways to deal with their own emotional problems that don’t involve burdening their children. If one or more parent turned you into their emotional sounding board from a young age, giving you details about their sex life, emotional life, financial situation, addiction, or any other information that you weren’t prepared to handle, that was inappropriate and probably toxic. 

- You were forced to lie to cover up problems at home. Your parents expressly forbid you from talking about family problems with outsiders, or coached you on what you should say. An incarcerated family member was “travelling”, an addicted parent “just works too much”, a mentally ill parent is “totally fine”. Everything was about appearances, and any distress you might have been experiencing about your home life was pushed aside in the interest of presenting as a happy, stable family. This robs children of the opportunity to get help, or even learn how to express their pain. Even as an adult, you are probably secretive for no reason, and feel panicked at the thought of someone finding out your life isn’t perfect. 

- You were given zero privacy. Children need privacy, and that need for privacy increases every year as they get older. Toxic parents do not respect this. These parents enter without knocking, demand access to all devices, read diaries, rifle through possessions when you’re not home, and scrutinize all monetary spending. They go far above and beyond reasonable monitoring for safety reasons - they question and force you to justify everything you do. They demand to know what you meant when you texted your friend the other day, they want to know why you wasted $5 on junk food last week, they insist that you should have no problem keeping your door open at all times if you have nothing to hide. This behaviour often continues into your adult life - they demand unrestricted access to your apartment after you move out, and will accuse you of having something to hide if you refuse. 

- All gifts and favours came with strings attached. Your parents would often offer you some gift or favour - often something that you didn’t even want - and insisted that you accept it. And once you’d accepted it, they would hold it over your head forever. Your dad offers you his old car that you have nowhere to park, and is in need of costly repairs. If you try to refuse, he sulks, calls you ungrateful, and insists that you never let him do anything nice for you. But for months or years after you do take the car, anytime you displease him or refuse one of his ridiculous demands, he hits you with “I was kind enough to give you a car, and this is the thanks I get??”. Your parents do not view gifts as kind gestures or ways to show their live - they view them as tools to keep you trapped and indebted to them.

- Everything was about them. If you get sick, it’s inconvenient for them, because now they have to rearrange their schedule to take you to the doctor, and it’s stressful for them to have a sick child. If you get bullied at school, it’s embarrassing for them to have to deal with the situation. If you get into your dream college, it’s stressful for them to have to think about paying for it, even if you’re paying for it yourself. Every event in your life is framed around your parent and the impact that it will have on their life - your emotions are never considered or given centre stage. You are frequently in a position of having to comfort your parents, even when the thing they are upset about is actually happening to you. You are constantly made to feel selfish for wanting your own life to actually be about you. 

- You were called childish and immature, but actively prevented from growing up. Your parents implied that there was something wrong with you because you were single, but expressly forbid you from dating, even in your late teens and early 20s. They constantly threatened to kick you out for not following their rules, but did everything they could to prevent you from actually moving out. They called you lazy, but did not allow you to get a part-time job. They wanted you to be “mommy and daddy’s little kid” forever, even if it meant actively sabotaging you or forbidding you from reaching important milestones. They want you at home with them, but they will constantly complain about the “burden” of providing for you, and remind you that everything in the house is theirs. It’s an elaborate mind-game to keep you dependent and obedient, and it’s unbelievably toxic.  - They made decisions for you, and blamed you when those decisions ended poorly. They forced you to go to a local community college instead of going away to university, and now they ridicule you for having a “crappy” education. They forbid you from dating into your early 20s, and now they demand to know why you aren’t getting engaged at age 25 like all their friends’ kids. They chose your career path, extracurriculars and sports for you, and they demand to know why you aren’t excelling at those things. You are never allowed to make your own decisions, but you are held 100% responsible for the outcome of decisions that are made for you - your parents refuse to acknowledge any role that they might have played, and may insist that you had complete free will to make your own decisions, even when you didn’t.  - Your parents only cared about how your success makes them look, and anything less than perfection was an embarrassment. Your parents don’t care if you find your job, marriage or achievements personally fulfilling. They care only about taking credit for your success, looking better than their friends, family and neighbors, and benefiting financially from your status in life. You are never warmly or genuinely congratulated for doing well - perfection is expected, and you are punished for delivering anything less. Even if your parents publicly boast about your accomplishments, in private, they compare you to other people your age who they view as more successful, and demand to know why you can’t be more like them. They might demand that you support them financially, and imply that you owe them for all the money they spent raising you. 

- They constantly prodded at your insecurities, and made fun of you if you got upset or tried to improve yourself. Toxic parents will latch on to one or more areas that their child is insecure about - usually their appearance or weight, but sometimes their intelligence, talent, or athleticism - and constantly poke fun at them, often in public. If the child gets upset, they are told that they “have no sense of humour”, and they are blamed for getting upset, rather than the parent taking blame for saying something shitty. You are expected to laugh along when your failures are used as family entertainment - when your parent points to you and says “look at this chubby one, going back for seconds” or “the great artist of the family, couldn’t even get into art school”, you are treated like the unreasonable one for being emotionally crushed. If you try to improve on whatever area they are criticizing - by losing weight, improving your grades, etc - they treat you like you’re overreacting, and actively try to stop you. They need you to stay insecure so they always have a sore spot to poke at. 

- Your parents insisted that you trust them with your secrets, and then violated your trust. If you refused to tell your parents the details of what was going on your life, they would get upset, accusing you of hiding something or acting wounded that you didn’t trust them. If you were upset, they might even present themselves as a concerned parent and safe space, encouraging you to open up. Once you had, though, your parents would air your dirty laundry to the entire world, no matter how much you begged them not to. The details of your humiliating breakup would be shared among the entire family, your embarrassing medical issues would be openly discussed in front of others at the dinner table, and your secrets would be casually told to your friends whenever they came over. But no matter how often this happened, you weren’t allowed to stop trusting your parents - they would whip out their anger or feigned hurt, and start the process all over again.

- You were told that normal, healthy parenting was “soft” or “abnormal”, and that your parents’ toxic habits would make you stronger. Even if you noticed that your friends seemed to be treated better than you, your parents constantly drilled it into your head that their harsh parenting methods were somehow beneficial to you, and that you should be grateful for them. Your parents sneered at the idea of encouragement or unconditional love and pointed out your friends’ flaws, or insisted that those parenting methods wouldn’t work on you. If you come from an immigrant family, they might have insisted that toxic parenting was part of your culture, and that healthy parenting was an “American” thing. You might even have found yourself defending your parents when your friends expressed concern over the way they treat you.  Toxic families are different, and even one or two of these traits is enough to have a profound emotional impact on you that carries long into adulthood. Your parents aren’t automatically “good” parents just because they fed you and refrained from beating you - if you grew up in a toxic household, you have the right to be upset about that, even if other children had it “worse”. Acknowledging that your upbringing was not healthy or normal is usually the first step in breaking away from a toxic family, and deciding to get help for any long-term effects you may be experiencing. 

[missmentelle]

Let’s Talk About Crabs and Buckets.

If you put a single crab into a bucket, it will climb out and escape from becoming someone’s dinner.  If you put a whole bunch of crabs in a bucket, however, the crabs in the bottom of the bucket will pull the crabs at the top of the bucket back down if they try to escape. Instead of allowing some or all of the crabs to survive, the group of crabs will ensure that every single one of them ends up on a plate. 

This same phenomenon is seen in human communities, where it has become known - appropriately - as crab bucket mentality. From the outside, these crab bucket communities might look like support groups, or places to get feedback and advice. But in reality, they are black holes - these are communities where people go to tear each other down, and to actively be torn down in return. Instead of lifting each other up, these communities burrow further and further into their buckets, until everyone is too bitter and broken to ever climb out.  And you might be part of a crab bucket community without even knowing it.  Some online communities are obvious crab-buckets. The so-called “incel” community might be the most obvious example; these are angry young men who tell each other over and over again that they are worthless, unattractive, and that they will never be loved. Lonely teenagers enter the incel community to talk about how frustrated and insecure they are after dealing with romantic rejection, and they quickly find themselves pushed toward hopelessness, violent misogyny and suicidal fantasies. Likewise, the “pro-anorexia” and “thinspo” communities are crab buckets, where members encourage each other to adapt more and more extreme disordered eating, and often invite other members to make cruel comments about their bodies and food journals. Insecure young women (and some men) go to these communities because they want to like their bodies more, and end up weighed down with self-hatred. 

But not every crab bucket is obvious. 

Although there are lots of wonderful and supportive spaces online for LGBTQ+ people, the internet is also littered with LGBTQ+ crab buckets - especially for trans people. Some trans communities are almost entirely dedicated to discouraging and criticizing other trans people for not “passing”; these communities will pore over each others’ pictures, pointing out lingering masculine or feminine features, comparing each other to “a man in a dress”, or outright convincing each other that there is no point in transitioning, as they have no hope of ever “passing”. Anxious trans or questioning people join these groups to navigate a very difficult time in their lives, only to have their own insecurities magnified and distorted.  Communities and feedback circles for writers and artists can also be crab buckets. Again, while there are wonderful and supportive spaces available, there are also toxic black holes out there, masquerading as genuine communities. I’ve belonged to writers’ groups where every single piece of writing was viciously torn to shreds, no matter how promising it might have seemed, and there were constant discussions about how ‘pointless’ it was to try to get published. Members were so insecure about not “making it” that they frantically tried to crush the hopes and dreams of anyone who might be competition. Instead of producing better writing, these kinds of groups eventually produce no writing at all. 

Activist communities are often crab buckets. On the surface, people join activism communities to lift each other up and feel less alone in their cause; in reality, however, many activist communities have underlying cultures of suspicion, gossip, and hostility. Members gleefully comb through each other’s posts and content carefully, constantly looking for any small mistake or out-of-context comment that will allow them to declare that someone is “trash” or “cancelled”. People join these causes to fight back against their own feelings of powerlessness, and often report developing anxiety, depression and panic attacks as a result. 

The list of crab bucket communities goes on. Any kind of group can become a crab bucket group under the right conditions; just because a community is created by and for a marginalized identity, it doesn’t mean that that community is actually safe for that identity. As humans, we like to band together in groups to accomplish large goals and feel less alone… but sometimes, we turn those groups into echo chambers for our own toxic ideas, and try to drag as many people as we can down into our buckets of despair with us. 

If you’re in a group that you suspect might be getting a little crabby, it’s probably time to leave. Turning a whole group around by yourself is an enormous and thankless task, and it’s not one that I’d wish on anybody. Once a group of people have formed a collective identity around proving why they’re all worthless or fat or problematic, it’s hard to turn that ship around, and any attempts to do it might be met with hostility. It’s okay to give up on toxic communities, and look for healthy ones that build you up instead of tearing you down. 

It’s okay to climb out of the bucket. 

[zuzuyams]

Eugene gets me

[acti-veg]

US rivers and lakes are shrinking for a surprising reason: cows

Cattle-feed crops, which end up as beef and dairy products, account for 23% of water consumption in the US

Lake Mead, in Arizona and Nevada, for example, hasn’t been full since 1983, and has fallen by almost two-thirds in the last 20 years alone. According to Richter’s analysis, almost 75% of that decline can be attributed to cattle-feed irrigation.

[acti-veg]

‘Not all farmers’ and ‘not all meat eaters’ but all vegans eat quinoa? All vegans wear plastic? All vegans use agave? All vegans don’t care about human rights issues? All vegans have no idea what farming looks like? Don’t ask us to stop generalising while you still refuse to see vegans as anything other than white, rich, able-bodied and privileged.

[vegan-and-sara]

The original thread about vegan leather is out of hand so I’m making a new one because I have more thoughts about what pissed me off about that whole discussion.

It’s really telling that she said that her post about VEGAN LEATHER “wasn’t supposed to hit the vegan community”. It really struck me to read that because it articulates the reality of most anti-vegan rhetoric these days. They’re no longer trying to convince us that systematic animal exploitation is okay, they’re trying to convince themselves.

She readily acknowledged that she had no intention of actually engaging with vegans about the issue. She included no sources for any of her claims because she can’t substantiate something she made up, and she knew that her intended audience of non-vegans wouldn’t be interested in fact checking something they already wanted to hear anyway. Omnis will literally invent the facts they wish were real and decide that their belief in these “facts” is all it takes to make a compelling argument. And what’s wild is that posts like hers ARE compelling arguments to other omnis. They’re so hooked on confirmation bias that they’ll accept any bullshit that makes them feel warm and fuzzy about supporting animal abuse.

The point is never to win the debate about veganism, it’s to maintain just enough doubt to make the status quo seem reasonable if you don’t look closely at it.

[love]

Life’s Lil Pleasures Vol. 1 & 2 by Evan Lorenzen

[dankmemeuniversity]

[little-misses-lee]

Adjustments.

When you become chronically ill, you have no choice but to allow and take adjustments in your life. You become a different person, both to yourself and to others. Life in itself is suddenly a completely different game that you don't know how to play and noone is there to teach you. You have to adjust to a new way of living, a new way of feeling, both emotionally and physically, a new way of how people see and respond to you. You have to get used to feeling bitterness, sadness, anger, in a way you didn't feel before and you have to get used to fighting, for everything. Everything changes, from the way you sleep, to your mobility, to your ability to do a job that you love and are good at, just everything. I have had to accept that the anger towards my illness and disability, to how society views it, has made me mess up a lot of things that are really important to me.

It is hard to adjust to people being well meaning or sincere, whilst being ableist or ignorant at the same time. It is hard to adjust to the fact that if you point out peoples ableism or ignorance, it becomes somehow another flaw in your own personality. It is hard to adjust to the fact that you are often completely alone in your battles. You are somehow expected to stay happy, to control your emotions, to not finally snap at the things that hurt you emotionally, when you have forgotton what not being in pain feels like, when you haven't slept for more than an hour for days, when you are on medications that bring about more symptoms and when you are trying to balance your general wellbeing, your family life, your work, your medical appointments and the emotional upheaval of it all. .

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A black and white photo showing a small section of building above an archway with a sign for the NHS hospital 'The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery'.

[annushorribilis]

[ohpenmikephotos]

THE COCOAPUFF GIRLS

So about this project. For awhile now I’ve noticed almost every single time I see a darker skinned black woman “going viral”, she’s half naked, oiled up, and/or sexualized in some way shape or form. It’s very rarely ever “Look at this amazing dark skinned woman who accomplished this thing.” Or “Look at her smile, she’s gorgeous”.  Please don’t misinterpret what I’m saying. There is nothing wrong with darker women and black women in general being free and expressive about their sexuality and provocative features. BUT that is NOT ALL they are. They are so much more than sexual beings, but for some reason, that seems to be almost the only thing that grabs viral appreciation. So here’s my attempt to have darker skinned black women go viral for just being cute, creative, stylish, bubbly, beautiful, and black. Aside from the videographer EVERYONE involved in this project IS A BLACK WOMAN. I hope you guys like it. I ask that if you enjoyed this and agree with my objective, share it with a few people please.

A special thank you to @aggienes, I couldn’t have done this without her.

INSTAGRAM PAGES OF THOSE INVOLVED Photographer & Creative Director: @ohpenmike @ohpenmikephotos Stylist: @ohpenmikephotos & @aggie_hair Hair-Stylist: @aggie_nes @aggie_hair Graphic Designer: @pepitapepper MUA: @chidi.mma Models: @kristiatolode @misskellykel @chiepodeu @yanjusofine_

[aggienes-deactivated20230117]

I worked on this project with @ohpenmike and other talented black artists. Enjoy 😊

[vbartilucci]

Men less likely to wear masks because they’re ‘not cool,’ study finds — sociologists say Trump, toxic masculinity and racism also play a role

A new study suggests that may be more resistant to wearing masks because they view them as a sign of weakness. Sociologists weigh in on what else may be driving the disparity.

You know how when someone flies past you at 90 in the slow lane on the highway, and you can’t help wishing that they hit a patch of oil and spin into a ditch?

Can’t imagine why that crossed my mind just now.

[durkin63]

“White men less likely to be mindless sheep”

[theidledrifter]

Your paper or cloth mask is useless against a 2 micron virus that can ALSO be absorbed through your eyeballs, OP.

[sindri42]

1: The virus is smaller than the holes in the mask, but the virus does not fly by itself. It moves on water droplets pushed out on the breath of infected people. Those droplets are significantly larger than the holes in the mask.

2: A single protein will not lead to infection, because your passive immune system deals with that shit. Infection happens when the amount of the virus in your system overwhelms the defenses, which means the more exposure you get the more likely you are to get the disease. That’s why the rule is ‘stay more than 6ft away from people’ rather than ‘never breathe unfiltered air within 30 miles of an outbreak’. It also means that if you are not rubbing it directly into your eyeballs, you’re not going to get infected by the air touching your eyes.

3: The primary purpose of the mask is not to protect you. It does reduce your chances of infection (quite significantly when used right) but that’s secondary. The goal is to prevent you from spreading it to other people. There’s two weeks between when you become contagious and when you develop symptoms, and that’s if you do develop symptoms instead of being one of the 50-75% of infected who never notice it themselves but spread the disease to people who will die from it. But if you’re not smearing your hands over every available surface, or if the people around you are washing their hands properly, then the only way you can transfer it to anybody else is on your breath… and even a simple bandanna will cut the lethal range of your breath down from ‘about six feet’ to ‘maybe a couple inches’ by absorbing most of the moisture you breathe out and preventing the rest from getting any momentum from your exhalation.

tl;dr? You’re an idiot, wear your damn mask.

[awesome-picz]

This Bird Is Called The Black-Throated Bushtit And Yes, You Read That Right

[soracities]

sleepy girls club™

[medusas-trophy-wife-deactivated]

i dont rlly have acne anymore but holy shit when i did ppl were so obnoxious about it like if someone has acne the reason isn't ur business and unsolicited advice probably just makes them feel self conscious plus is something theyve already tried

[medusas-trophy-wife-deactivated]

ur skin is ur largest organ and is constantly reacting to both internal and external conditions but some ppl rlly think the only reason anyone has acne is because they're too dumb to wash their face

[kubdamnit]

Okay so, I’ve acne, not severe but enough that people notice. Some periods it looks like I’m handeling it, but sometimes my acne gets worse, due to stress, my period or whatever reason there is.

In those periods people think it’s a good thing to give me advice on how to handle my own acne. At first I didn’t say shit about it cuz, u know, manners??!. But lately I’ve been cutting people off the moment they ask why my acne is the way it is or why I don’t clean my skin (beg your pardon, I clean it nice and good every single fucking day) and start giving me advice on how to handle it!!

I find it rude, u don’t hear me about your yellow teeth or idk your sweaty smell... so why u giving me your opinion on how to handle my own ‘problem’ I find it very obnoxious when people do that, it even hurts a little.

So my advice? U see someone with acne? Just ask them how they are, how their day is going, if they did something fun today.. asking/ talking to them about their acne doesn’t make them feel better, it just makes the matter worse. I wouldn’t go outside when my acne got worse, I stayed home and called in sick, I started thinking it was something so ugly (even disgusting) cuz people didn’t look me in my eyes but kept looking at my acne while talking to me... I used to hate it.. don’t be the reason people hate themselves or things about themselves, don’t be the bad guy...