Othersidhe Social

Social, thoughtful, political, people oriented, world, environment and religion stuff. Personal opinions galore; don't like it? Buzz off.

[kidrat]

literally who CARES if straight cis men are wearing skirts for ‘clout’!!! I want to live in a world where being gnc is desirable to them rather than one where they make bigoted jokes about it. it’s GOOD that people with the privilege to do so are normalising gender non conformity and i dont give a shit if they have deliberate political intentions or if they’re just having fun you guys are all so annoying

[kidrat]

we could be using the tiktok boys to kickstart a movement around men wearing skirts that would benefit gnc and trans people but you guys want ideological purity before u want results

[animamosaic]

When I was in middle school, way back in 1994, we had An Incident. A few popular boys dared each other to wear skirts to school on Monday. To, in their own words, “See what it was like to wear skirts, lol. Why shouldn’t we?”. It wasn’t anything fancy, they just pulled some long hippie skirts over their jeans in the bathroom and giggled their way to class.

I want to go back a bit here. It was 1994. There were no out gay people anywhere near our school. Certainly no trans people. A few celebrities on TV, sure, but mostly in jokes. And not everyone had access to MTV or cable. The internet didn’t exist for us. Only a few kids had ever even heard of Rocky Horror Picture Show, which would be my first brush with gender fuckery that came close to positive rep in the media. Our city and state had a measure on the ballot almost every year since the mid eighties attempting to criminalize even mentioning the word gay. AIDs was still a looming specter over everything. It was dangerous to be seen as gay or gender nonconforming.

So these boys. They weren’t trying to make a statement. They weren’t even making a gay joke. They just thought it wold be silly to wear skirts. They wanted to see what it felt like. They were experimenting. The teachers flipped out. The boys wear marched into the principle’s office, their parents called, they were sent home for the day, a school announcement was made about inappropriate clothing and being lewd in school. Again, long loose skirts over pants. “Skirts aren’t for you. It’s wrong for boys to wear skirts. Stay in your straight boy box”. In response we, the students, responded with “Fuck the police!”.

2 Days later about 2/3 of boys showed up in skirts, jewelry, and makeup. No girls wore skirts, makeup, or jewelry. Some girls drew mustaches and wore suits. It began as just a anti-authoritarian response to what we saw as a ridiculous over reaction to boys in skirts, but the more we thought about it the more upset we got. Why couldn’t they wear skirts any time they wanted??? Why shouldn’t they paint their nails??? What if they did it all the time??? Yeah maybe some of them did like other boys, so what??? Maybe some of the girls in school never wanted to wear skirts or makeup, didn’t like their boobs, and/or didn’t like boys??? MAYBE IT WAS ALL BULLSHIT

In about a week a large number of us had become queer advocates without even knowing what that was. And in the face of that many kids, the school didn’t know what to do. Send us all home? We had several days of no free periods allowed, no recess time, lunch was for eating and quiet contemplation. Parents were called and warnings mailed that school dress codes were being updated. Unfortunately for school policy enough parents also thought that enforcing the gender binary was ridiculous that meetings had to be held. And some of the wealthier parents rolled up with lawyers ready to argue that Timmy had every right to wear a long skirt, and you couldn’t suspend Alice because she’d buzzed her hair on Thursday and started wearing mens suit pants and jackets. So it was dropped mostly. Skirts couldn’t be above the knee, no spaghetti straps, no drawing on your face - regardless of gender. But the air had changed.

Most kids went back to wearing whatever they had before. But, several boys continued painting their nails, grew out their hair, and occasionally wore skirts. Several girls chopped their hair off and wore “boys” clothing. One person, and this was literally unheard of, asked their friends to stop calling them Bridgett and call them Brandon. And they did. I lost track of most of the students, this town isn’t that small, but I know some of them came out as queer later in life. I can’t say that incident was a turning point for them, but it was for me.

It started as boys being silly. But at least 2 of those initial boys ended up wearing skirts and makeup regularly after that well into high school, and not as a joke. If they’d been shouted down? If other kids hadn’t said, “You know what? Good for you!” I hope they still would have been able to come out, but it probably wouldn’t have been as easy.

And yes, it did start as a joke. But the response is what matters here. It wasn’t treated as a joke. It was met with anger. Then acceptance. And it made a positive difference.

So, I see people upset that “straight cis” people aren’t wearing clothes correctly and… Y'all. I just see another instance of some kids playing with ideas and experimenting, pushing the boundaries. And being met with anger. And told to get back in their gender appropriate box.

“Well well well what if they mean it as a joke???” Tell them they look good and should wear skirts more often, if they want to. Tell them that yellow isn’t their color, but they’d look great in green. Tell them that if they get thigh chaffing to try bike shorts underneath. If you can’t handle that, don’t say anything. Block them and move on. If they’re assholes, block them and move on. But don’t tell them they can’t wear clothing because they haven’t labeled themselves correctly.

You can’t say you support queer rights and gender nonconformity and then get pissy when people don’t wear pants/skirts in narrow ways you like.

Stop trying to validate yourself by pushing down other people.

(I’m using pronouns for people that were used when I last knew them, since I have no way of knowing if they’ve changed)

EDIT: I do know this situation is specific. It wouldn’t have happened the same at some of the other schools in town. Families trended more liberal, and the popular kids were mostly wealthier. So, we all had adults saying, “gays aren’t evil but also not encouraged, but you can’t say you don’t encourage them”. The parental support was mostly of a “don’t tell my kid what to do” liberal posturing. Very few of the parents actually supported their kid being queer at the time. Brandon changing their name was a secret. We, the students radicalized ourselves on accident, but no one actually came out until years later. Our supporting each other to wear whatever we wanted, joke or not, was influential in coming out though. (my parents basically asked if I wanted to buy a suit to wear to school, also did I want to form a picket line. I did not, but appreciated the idea. Mom told one of the boys he looked very pretty when he wore a dress to graduation. Which was another Incident, and also very funny because they couldn’t punish him at all by then)

[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.

[bigenbysharkshoal]

If you’re going to deny someone’s request to respect their triggers, don’t bother being around them. You’re not a safe person for them to be around, whether you like it or not, the simple action of declining any kind of safety (physical, emotional, mental, psychological, verbal, etc) is not something a real friend would do. 

Respecting triggers is the bare minimum of decency, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Not respecting triggers (even through “polite decline”) is ableism.

[lymmea]

See, I knew this take would be here in the notes, and it is unfortunately an incorrect take. There are situations in which it is reasonable to say “I’m sorry, but I cannot accommodate your triggers, and it’s important that you know I can’t do this for you so that you can decide what’s best for you accordingly”.

Example: a follower of your blog asks you to tag something for them specifically. Maybe you don’t like using tags. Maybe it’s a tag for something really common, and it would be a huge hassle you’re expected to go through in order to make your blog trigger-safe for someone you barely know. Maybe you have a terrible memory and you know you’re not going to remember to tag this thing, so even if you wanted to make your blog safe for this one person you can’t promise strict compliance. Maybe this person wants you to tag something as a trigger that’s very personally meaningful to you/a very prevalent theme on your blog, so you’re not even sure why they want you to accommodate them because you’re not sure why they’re even here because your blog is never going to be tailored toward people like them and you are not about to even start to try making it so. (See: if someone asks me to tag “the q-slur”, not only am I going to say no, I’m going to tell them I don’t even want them following my blog because they’re straight up insulting a major facet of my identity.)

Another example: a friend is triggered by the smell of coffee, so they ask you - an avid coffee-drinker - to stop drinking coffee. Full stop. Not “don’t drink it around me”, which would be a more reasonable request, but not to drink it ever. This is an example of someone wanting their triggers respected, but who is demanding accommodation in a way that infringes on someone else’s right to live their life the way they like. In those cases, it’s reasonable to say no, because the request itself is unreasonable.

But what if it was a more reasonable request? Say, a significant other asking their partner, who they live with, not to drink coffee, because it’s kind of impossible to escape the smell of coffee when someone is brewing it in the place where you live? This is more reasonable to ask, since it’s understandably harder for the person with the trigger to avoid the trigger in such an instance…but it’s also something that could be a dealbreaker. Some people really need coffee to function. (There are even some people who need to self-medicate to some degree with coffee.) Compromise could happen - such as, maybe the partner gets their coffee from Starbucks so they don’t have to brew it in the house - but it could also be super disruptive for them, or perhaps unaffordable on tight incomes. So how do you handle that? In cases of conflicting needs, the person with the trigger needs to either try to reach a reasonable compromise with the person they’re asking to accommodate them, or accept that they need more accommodation than can reasonably be given by the other person and withdraw for their own safety. It sucks when conflicting needs like that can’t be resolved(which can sometimes happen), but it doesn’t mean the person putting their foot down is wrong to do so. It doesn’t mean it’s anyone’s fault. But it’s not only people with triggers that have a right to live comfortable lives with reasonable freedoms to do what they want.

It’s nice to accommodate someone’s triggers, obviously, but a reminder: it is not okay to make demands or expect complete compliance from strangers to make something that is not ultimately for you, specifically - such as someone else’s personal blog - safe for you. Likewise, even with close friends, making unfair demands or expecting someone to change major aspects of their life for you, without respecting their right to say “this is too much to ask of me”, is a great way to make Bad Guys out of completely reasonable people. There are limits to what it is reasonable to ask someone else to do for you, which are also tied into how well you know them and how onerous it would be for them. Asking a stranger to make very minor accommodations is not unreasonable; asking a close friend to make significant accommodations is not unreasonable. Asking a stranger to make significant accommodations, or a close friend to make unreasonable and/or actively life-altering concessions, really starts to enter “it’s great if they’re willing to, but they are not obligated to and you don’t get to call them a terrible person for saying no” territory.

Saying “I’m sorry, but I can’t do this for you” not only is a reasonable statement - after all, it gives the power of deciding what to do next, for their own safety, back to the person with the trigger(s), and it doesn’t chastise them for having their trigger(s) so much as it is warning them that a certain space cannot reasonably be made safe for them - but it absolutely needs to exist. Acting as though anyone who declines to tailor their lives to any and all trigger requests, for any reason, is ableist - without even the slightest consideration to conflicting needs, or certain spaces being inherently unsafe for certain people(if people being tied up is a trigger for you, perhaps you should not be demanding the shibari blog to make itself a safe space for you), or even whether the accommodation request was remotely reasonable to begin with…you’re basically saying “having a trigger means you have a right to make demands that only Bad People would ever refuse”. There’s no room for nuance. There’s not even room for other people to have the simplest of rights, like “having the content I want on my own blog, and the freedom to tag or not tag what I feel like in a space that is literally mine and no one else’s when tags are already a user-optional thing”.

And it opens the doors wide to people who will either make unreasonable demands because of their triggers(because people with triggers can be and sometimes are extremely unreasonable about how other people should keep them safe), or to people who will actually fake having triggers in order to force other people to do what they want. Which is utterly reprehensible, and obviously it’d never be safe to assume someone is faking a trigger, but if you’re saying people with triggers get to make demands that only evil ableists can say no to, can’t you see how tempting that arrangement would be to people acting in bad faith??? It invites people (whether they have genuine triggers or not) to strong-arm others into doing what they want, and if their demands are refused for any reason then they have an excuse to villainize and attack those people.

I’m sorry, but nuance, compromise between both parties, the possibility of conflicting needs, and the right to say “no” to accommodating triggers are deeply necessary aspects of any conversation about triggers. In a perfect world, everyone’s triggers could be accommodated by everyone else with no issue, but that is not the reality of the world we live in. You obviously have a very narrow view of who might refuse to accommodate triggers and for what reasons, but there is a lot more to consider that you haven’t taken into account. Your stance on triggers and accommodating them could do far more harm than any polite refusal.

[curlicuecal]

#another one for the #‘when we are not allowed boundaries we will resent others for having needs’ wall

[farashasilver]

I am not policing anyone. I am saying that you have a moral responsibility (or at least you SHOULD) once you post something like that on the Internet. Warnings don't do shit. We all know that people are curious. Children are curious. No kid actually cares about the under 18 warning. They are impressionable and easily copy behaviour. I was like that, my friends were like that. I'm not saying don't post things like that. I'm just asking, are you ready to take responsibility for the aftermath?

You seem to be laboring under the misconception that I am responsible for internet teenagers’ poor choices. I’m not. Neither is any content creator. Do you spend your free time going after the adult film industry and asking whether they’re ready to “take responsibility” for teenagers that deliberately ignore the 18+ notification and click through to their weird diaper fetish porn?

I was a teenager on the internet once (I’m not going to say back in the day because I have followers that were on Usenet and that’s REALLY back in the day). We didn’t used to have any kind of content warnings at all. I say this jokingly a lot but seriously, back in my day, you could trip over xeno tentacle non-con in the middle of a fic that didn’t look like it was going in that direction, and it wasn’t labeled at all. Ever! You know what was labeled and warned for, left right and center? “This story has slash in it! That’s GAY KISSING!!!” 

Seriously though, there used to be a time when the fandom and fic-writing atmosphere was so toxic to same-sex relationships that the content was usually hidden behind a splash screen with an obnoxious warning in cyan comic sans. Sometimes there were “secret instructions” on the disclaimer page - people would hide how to get into their website (“if you read the disclaimer you’ll know to click on the ^_^ face in the bottom left corner of the page to get to the site!” and such nonsense). I grew up in a time on the internet when it was easier to find graphic torture porn and rape-as-woobifying-backstory than it was to find fluffy hand-holding fic with my gay OTP.

And all I can hear when y’all roll up all “THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!” is all the people who forced slash and femslash fans out of their archives, away from their internet space, and into the loosely-organized circle of Geocities webrings that defined fandom in the early 90s. Eventually we all started to congregate on LJ, where content could be locked behind a friends-only filter and people could gather in closed communities where we could be free from harassment by homophobic morons. When the Great Purge of FF.net happened and NC-17 was officially added to their rules as banned content, guess who was most reported to the moderators and most impacted by the policy change? Slash fans. And when Strikethrough happened, it disproportionately effected slash fans. Again.

Teenagers may not be old enough to have fully developed consequence/reward centers in the frontal lobe, but the average age for being able to discern reality from fiction is five years old. It’s horrifically condescending and disingenuous to pretend that teens are so delicate and fragile that reading some smut that disturbs them or isn’t to their tastes is going to drastically upset their psyche. The most that’s going to happen is they’re going to come away from whatever smut they deliberately clicked through the warning to read knowing that people have some weird kinks when it comes to sex. And you know what? YKINMKATO. The end.

[octopuscato]

We. Are. Not. Your. Mama.

[jabberwockypie]

I was an unsupervised teenager on the internet lo these many years ago. And I clicked on plenty of fanfic websites that wanted you to verify you were over 18,

You know what happened?

Nothing much. Sometimes I’d read something that made me feel weird and gross. Sometimes I’d close out of the window and clear the cache and stay off the computer and do something else for a day or two.

It says a lot, I think that I don’t actually remember the content of most of the fic in question. I remember the feeling, but from years later, I honestly couldn’t tell you most of the actual content that made me feel squicked and gross.

(I know the very first one I Noped out of when I was 11, because it was just, like. Ridiculously tame. But Hermione started to give Draco Malfoy a backrub, and I decided this was Inappropriate For Me. So I stopped reading it.)

I didn’t die.

It didn’t contribute to any of my myriad mental health issues - those are all either hereditary or a result of the actions of actual, real life people.

I didn’t “copy behavior” - the idea is laughable. I was a nerdy teenager with no IRL friends, you really think I was running out to … what, exactly? Manipulate or torture people with Unforgivable Curses/dark magic/alien brain slugs/insert-setting-appropriate-evil-thing-here? Have an orgy?

I’ve made bad choices at different times in my life, but none of them were a result of fictional characters modelling bad behavior. (Mostly they involved me not knowing how to handle something, or not being very good at boundaries.)

The people responsible for “dealing with the aftermath” are the kids themselves, and their parents.

[findingfeather]

If you’re old enough to be on the internet unsupervised you’re old enough to pay attention to a goddamn mature content note and stay out of its gonna be a problem for you.

If you’re not up to that then get off the damn internet without a grownup to look after you.

[megpie71]

As always, I am absolutely fascinated with this apparent insistence that fanfiction, and fanfiction alone, must transcend all the current conventions around the ethics of creation and distribution which exist in this world. 

No other product out there requires the creators to take direct responsibility for the ways third parties misuse their product.  Firearm and ammunition producers aren’t considered directly responsible for mass shootings, wars, massacres; car manufacturers aren’t held directly responsible for car crashes or ram raids; brewers and distillers aren’t held responsible for alcohol-fuelled violence.  Tobacco product manufacturers aren’t held directly responsible for deaths from tobacco-caused cancers.  I could go on with examples.  All of these things exist in the world, and all of them are capable of being misused in ways which are harmful to others.  But none of their producers are held responsible for those harms in the ways fanfiction authors are being held responsible for the ways other people are potentially using their fiction.

Certainly fanfiction is being held to higher standards of moral righteousness than any other form of narrative fictional entertainment out there - published original fiction certainly isn’t facing the same sort of fannish inquisition that fanfiction has been put through over the past few years.  Neither are motion pictures, video games, television serials, soap operas, newspapers, television news, and the list goes on.  It’s only fanfiction which faces this particular requirement.

I’d be interested in hearing the reason why it’s so very important that fanfiction, and only fanfiction, be so morally appropriate.

[allsortsoflicorice]

Teenagers, the consequences of the choices you make are your responsibility and yours alone. We did our due diligence by warning you to stay out. 

[risingoflights]

tangentially to this, i lived in a small community when i was young - we had a tiny theater. i must’ve been 5? 6? years old when my buddies and i decided to sneak in and watch a movie intended for adults. i saw a scene of someone getting cut in half by a trap door. it sure as hell taught me to heed the bloody warnings on things.

[othersidhesocial]

It’s because people want to control each other and it is an easily accessible avenue to do so. You can’t control what published authors put in their books, or the movie theaters, or ideogame producers, but you can damn well shame a 12 year old fanfic author into feeling so uncomfortable in his internet comfort zone so as to No longer want to write about his gay boyfriend in his isekai fantasy fanfiction that he was really posting just for himself as an escape from reality and kindly sharing it with the world. Which then makes him think he’s not welcome and no longer wants to share. And that, that has emotional consequences. Think before you fuck with people’s emotions, y’all.

[nancylou444]

Motherfucker

this sucks

[dr-algernop-deactivated20220313]

I just want everyone to appreciate how corrupt the system is here.

Britney gets a lawyer appointed by her father, who's lawyer she also has to pay for, in order to terminate the conservator ship. Let me say that again: Her father, who has control of her money, chooses the lawyer who is going to attempt to remove his control of that money. Her father, her lawyer, and her fathers lawyer all have direct financial incentive to continue the conservatorship.

This isn't just an issue with Britney: it's a perverse and corrupt court & legal system.

[repentant-retard-x]

There is video of her testimony about the abuse she’s faced at the hands of her family and the courts. Watch it and understand that the judge who tossed it out has the power to ruin the lives of everyone that enters the courtroom

[joannadisciple-deactivated20210]

Meanwhile, complete dirtbags like Bill Cosby get to walk free due to a “legal technicality.” Our system is meant to benefit the rich and corrupt before anyone else.

[mysharona1987]

[sleepybitchcity-deactivated2022]

Hospitals are struggling for nurses right now because people are leaving the profession entirely or leaving for temporary travel contract positions that pay well. They have been treated poorly, underpaid for the work they do, and inadequately protected this year, and they’re done.

My brother in law said they’re advertising for a position in his normal unit, offering twice his salary. But they won’t offer him extra to stay after risking his life working in the COVID unit for months, so he’s out. It’s absolutely insulting, and so many industries are going to have a major reckoning coming up.

[ranting-to-much]

My father retired early because they refused to hire just one person to help with the work load. They had to hire 5 people to replace him.

This is a common occurrence amongst his retired coffee group.

One lady was a head nurse that ran two floor at her hospital. They wanted her to take on more work. She agreed to do so oy if they gave her a small raise and hired an assistant for her. They refused so she retired early. They had to replace her with 20 people.

You are NOT replaceable!!! They tell you this to make you complacent to their exploration of you.

[0hcicero]

Fun fact! This sort of reckoning happened after the Black Plague, also! I'm no historian, (and history side of tumblr, please come in with the accuracy) but I did look into the history of the Black Plague for writing purposes, and in that case, it was because there were so few people left that peasants started agitating for better treatment and fairer wages, and because there were so few people who could do the work they had been doing that they were able to gain better wages and better hours. Historically, the labour shortage created by pandemics means a heightened bargaining capacity for workers of all sorts - an if there was ever a time to take advantage of knowing history, it's now. Because the thing is, in these "unprecedented times" there are precedents, and the precedent leans toward workers. During the Black Death, villages emptied, fields were left, and people migrated to find work that paid them better and offered a better way of life. Wages for lower-class workers rose drastically. In Oxfordshire; a plowman who had earned two shillings per week before the plague could command 10 shillings per week afterward. Pay rates for artisans increased, too. In Paris, wages for masons quadrupled between 1351 and 1355.

This isn't to say that the elites just let this happen, either. Laws were passed to limit wage increases, and threats were made, but the workers had economic bargaining power on their side. Labour was in such short supply that employers and landlords had to take what they could get. The people held out - and so can (and should!) YOU.

This was the start of peasant revolts, popular rebellions, and - ultimately, more labour protections, political representation for the lower classes, lower taxes, and an end to serfdom. People could afford to own their own land, the feudal system vanished, and eventually, the Renaissance would rise. In these unprecedented times, there is a precedent, and that precedent is that when workers know their worth, agitate for better and for more, when they hold out and unite, they force the elites to loosen the reigns, giving more power, autonomy, rights, and profits back into the hands of the workers, and with that freedom, society improves.

Know your worth. Know that you have bargaining power. Let's make this pandemic part of the precedent. <3

[notjustanyannie]

👆 “Historically, the labour shortage created by pandemics means a heightened bargaining capacity for workers of all sorts - an if there was ever a time to take advantage of knowing history, it's now. Because the thing is, in these "unprecedented times" there are precedents, and the precedent leans toward workers. “

[lonelyroommp3]

my favourite adhd / general executive dysfunction feeling is when you become very consciously aware that you are bored and there is nothing interesting left on the 5 social media apps you’ve been cycling around for the past hour and finally a small logical part of your brain goes “hey! perhaps at this point it might actually be more fun to do one of the productive things you’ve been putting off!” and you’re this close to going oh huh yeah maybe that’s true! and getting up to do some housework or read a book or something when a far louder part of your brain goes “NO WAIT!!!! maybe THIS time when we refresh tumblr…. it will be interesting again” and you’re like “ohhhh right sorry for doubting you boss” & promptly get right back to doing fuck all

[picadreams]

How dare you call me out like this

[synnefo-nefeli]

I’ve started calling this “Digital Pacing” and since naming it, it’s helped me recognize the pattern before I’ve fallen too long into its trap.

[delightfulsubg-deactivated20210]

[ventraman]

Exactly. When one mixes in upbringing/cultural forces. Yeah. Your head gets screwed around, quick....

[delightfulsubg-deactivated20210]

I struggle SOOO MUCH with this. It’s something I’ve brought up in therapy, though I don’t think I articulated it this well. I truly do not understand the difference between confidence and arrogance. I’m also hyper vigilant about any behavior that could be seen as at all narcissistic. He seemed confident.. I don’t want to be like him.. so confidence feels bad and wrong. There is so much that goes into these issues.

[delightfulsubg-deactivated20210]

Such a great point @lordkingsmith !

Trying to explain my point of view or reasoning was called back talking or questioning my ex’s authority.

I also pointed out to someone this morning that resting feels like laziness. If I am not constantly accomplishing something measurable, valuable, and deemed worthy.. I feel lazy.

[delightfulsubg-deactivated20210]

I did not expect this post to take off the way it did. I’m really glad I stumbled on it though. When I saw it, it resonated hard with me. And I figured it would probably speak to a few others here. In 3 days though it had over 5,000 notes, so it’s a wider spread issue than I imagined.

Confidence specifically is something I’ve really struggled with. It feels weird and icky to acknowledge I do something well. So how do we fix it? For me I think it’s going to come down to a type of exposure therapy. Saying the good stuff even if it feels wrong…. But saying it to a trusted friend who can reinforce the idea. In theory, over time it will slowly rewire the brain and confidence won’t feel so slimey to me.

I’m open to other thoughts and suggestions though!

[jeanjauthor]

Image in the original post is of a tweet by JunoCounseling, which reads

“When you’re not used to being confident, confidence feels like arrogance

When you’re used to being passive, assertiveness feels like aggression.

When you’re not used to getting your needs met, prioritizing yourself feels selfish.

Your comfort zone is not a good benchmark.”

[girthakitt-blog]

one time a white student from the university in my home town was talking to a student that came from africa to study and said “wow growing up in africa must have been so tough for you” and he just replied “my family could buy you” and walked away

[dynamite5ftjewishbitch]

Fun, someone said the words “prior authorizations” around me and now I’m pissed off at 730am on my day off. I go off on this rant all the time. ALL THE TIME.

[wayfaringmd]

Oof. This man gets it.

[mondengel-deactivated20231111]

This isn’t even a one time thing.  I know someone who’s a Medical Assistant at a doctors office, and every once in awhile I get a rant about this.  There used to be one patient that was on a medicine that was literally keeping them alive.  The medicine was working perfectly, but every time they needed to renew it, the insurance company would refuse and demand the office “try out” a different (cheaper) medicine.  Mind you, changing the medicine risked this person actually dying.  

So this MA, every time, had to waste time on the phone with the company fighting with them to let the patient  use the medicine that the doctor had prescribed, which had been proven to be keeping them alive.  Apparently this run-around of being passed up the chain usually ended in the MA snapping and demanding “do you want my patient to die?  Because that’s what will happen if you don’t let them get this medicine” and the insurance person getting flustered because an honest response is “we don’t care” and grudgingly approving it.

Healthcare in the US is broken.

[missmentelle]

What abusers believe.

If you’ve ever had to deal with an abusive person in your life - like an abusive parent or partner - you’ve probably wondered what made them treat you that way. If you understand why abuse is happening, the thinking goes, you might be able to figure out how to make it stop. 

So why do abusers do what they do? Do they have anger issues? Drinking problems? Past trauma? Personality disorders? Do they just need to get in touch with their feelings and learn how to communicate better?

Nope. 

Abusive behaviours come from abusive beliefs. Abusers - whether consciously or unconsciously - hold specific beliefs about relationships that drive their behaviour and allow them to justify the horrible things they do. Even if your abuser has never put their beliefs into words, you’ll probably recognize a lot of these abusive beliefs:

You are responsible for my emotions. It is never my responsibility to reflect on my emotional reactions or learn better coping skills - it’s your responsibility to stop doing things that make me angry or upset.

I must act on my emotions. If I am angry, I am going to lash out. You have no right to criticize me for that, and it’s not my responsibility to learn to manage my  emotions - you have to stop making me lash out at you. Asking me not to act on my emotions is controlling and wrong.

You will always be responsible for my emotions. Even if the relationship ends, you will continue to be responsible for my emotions, and I will expect you to continue to prioritize my feelings.

If I have feelings about something, it’s my business. If something you do or think causes an emotional reaction in me, then I have a right to get involved or tell you what to do. My feelings must be the priority. You don’t have the right to tell me that it’s none of my business. 

You must judge me on my intentions, not my actions. If I didn’t mean to hurt you or scare you, then you don’t have the right to be hurt or scared. No one has the right to try to hold me accountable unless I meant to hurt someone.

I get to decide what your intentions were. If you hurt me, you meant to hurt me. If you make me jealous, you meant to make me jealous. Nothing you do is ever accidental or unintended - everything you do is intentional and malicious, even if it was a response to something I did.

My feelings are genuine; your feelings are manipulation. If I’m upset, my feelings are real and important. If you are upset, you have an ulterior motive - you’re just trying to be manipulative and get attention or sympathy for yourself.

You have freedoms because I allow you to. Every freedom you have in your life - like wearing what you want - it’s because I generously allow it. I expect you to be grateful to me for that. I have the right to take those freedoms away whenever I want, and I expect you to obey.

If you set boundaries with me, you are mistreating me. If you really loved me, you wouldn’t set boundaries with me. You are doing this to intentionally hurt me, which means I don’t have to respect those boundaries.

You holding me accountable for hurting you is worse than me hurting you. My pain at being called out is worse than your pain at being mistreated. If I feel bad about something I did, I have already been punished enough. You trying to discuss the issue or hold me accountable is just your way of abusing me.

If I apologized for something, you have to forgive me. If the relationship has ended, you have to reconcile with me. You don’t get to ask for more time apart or more discussion of the issue - once I’ve apologized, the matter is closed for good.

The relationship is not over until I say it is over. So long as I want a relationship with you, you must have a relationship with me. Your feelings are irrelevant. Even if we have broken up, you must remain available to me so we can get back together in the future. Not wanting a relationship with me means you are mistreating me or being immature. 

I am the authority in this relationship. I am smarter and more perceptive than you. I know what is best for both of us. My version of events is always the correct one. I have superior judgement, taste and opinions. If you question me or disagree with me after I’ve given you the correct answer, you are disrespecting and mistreating me, or you are simply immature and incapable of knowing what’s good for you.

I have the right to control you. It is my absolute right to decide what you do and who you associate with. You have no right to disobey me. I am owed obedience and control; if you don’t give me those things, you are wronging me and cheating me out of the relationship I deserve. 

If you resist my control, I am allowed to do whatever I think is necessary to get it back. Once you’ve resisted me, I am justified in whatever I do to regain control of you. I am not responsible for my actions when you resist my control; you forced me to do it, and it’s your own fault. 

I should be your main focus. Everything else in your life comes secondary to me. When you make decisions, my feelings should be your first consideration. You are expected to make sacrifices for me and put me at the center of your life; I am not obligated to do the same for you. 

If I spend money on you or do something for you, you are in debt to me. You spending money on me or doing things for me does not erase your debt to me, and I am never in debt to you. You are indebted to me for as long as I decide. I may decide that your belongings and earnings also belong to me, since I allow you to have them. I may also decide at any time that you owe me for gifts I gave you, even if they were meant to be gifts.

I am not abusive, and you are not allowed to tell me otherwise. I know what abuse is, and real abusers are significantly worse than me. If our relationship has ever had any good times or positive moments, it can’t possibly be abusive. If you accuse me of being abusive, you are the one abusing me, or you have been led astray by bad influences. 

Relationships should be effortless (for me). I am owed a relationship that is peaceful and requires no real effort from me. It is your job to make sure we have that kind of relationship. If there is any tension or conflict in the relationship, it is your fault, and you are depriving me of the relationship I deserve to have. 

Abusers and victims alike often buy into the narrative that abuse is rooted in anger issues - after all, abusers are frequently angry, and anger is an issue that can be treated. But this narrative just isn’t true. Abusers aren’t abusive because they are angry. Abusers are angry because they are abusive. 

A non-abusive partner is not someone who has learned how to control their rage whenever you spend time with your friends or get home 15 minutes late from work. A non-abusive partner just doesn’t feel any rage in those situations. An abuser’s rage is firmly rooted in their beliefs about relationships - they feel entitled to a relationship that meets their impossible expectations, and when they inevitably don’t get it, they bubble over with fury. Whether they know it or not, they have firmly entrenched beliefs about how relationships should be, and those beliefs are at the heart of their abuse. 

Can abusers stop believing these things? Maybe. If they can acknowledge that they have these beliefs, accept that these beliefs are dangerous and unreasonable and let go of these beliefs, maybe it’s possible for them to no longer be abusive in the future. Maybe. But it’s not your job to hang around and find out. If you’re in an abusive relationship of any kind, you deserve better. There are many people in this world who don’t hold abusive views of relationships, and you deserve to find happiness with them. 

[whatbigotspost]

I reblogged this before w/o adding any comments because it is just so good. But in the back of my mind I had wanted to highlight that if you, like me, were raised by an emotional abuser, you were probably taught a lot of these things are “normal.” They’re not.

That’s not your fault that happened. God, I really wish it never happened, alas being taught this stuff is sooooo commonplace. But, it very much our responsibilities as adults now to unlearn the toxic narratives that we did not consent to inheriting.

We can do it, too.

Read the list again. Read it any time you need it. The steer away from these beliefs. This stuff isn’t just about romantic relationships. We can be so much better than where we came from. I promise. ❤️❤️

[cazort]

so I think that there is a lot of useful stuff in this post, but I want to point out that there isn’t an either-or of being an “abuser” vs. not.

and people can act highly abusively even if they only hold some, but not all of the beliefs above. the beliefs above paint an extreme or black-and-white view of abuse, and it is often relatively easy to identify people who are behaving this way towards others in a relationship.

it’s often hardest to recognize abuse when it’s in relationships where the person committing the abuse is actually pretty nice to you much of the time.

i also have seen people (including partners of mine) who were not acting abusively towards me overall, develop a complex about being an “abuser” and beating themselves up with guilt, because they struggled occasionally with one or more beliefs like the ones above.

for example, holding other people responsible for your own feelings is a common and widespread problem, especially in a society that raises kids teaching them “not to hurt people’s feelings”.

also, abuse isn’t always about rage at all. abusive behaviors can have all sorts of motivating feelings behind them, or they can also be carried out less because of emotions and more because of thoughts and beliefs. for example, a lot of people enforce authoritarian rules on others because they believe that is the “right” way for the relationship to work, and it might have a sort of cold, detached, emotionless dynamic behind it.

i think it’s important to see and talk about the shades of gray in abuse if you’re really going to protect as many people as possible from being abused in relationships. i ended up in two relationships where i was abused, and I had heard a lot of rhetoric like the stuff above and it didn’t protect me.

[wilwheaton]

I just want to billboard this for anyone who also needed to hear it:

“I reblogged this before w/o adding any comments because it is just so good. But in the back of my mind I had wanted to highlight that if you, like me, were raised by an emotional abuser, you were probably taught a lot of these things are “normal.” They’re not.”

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

[shutyourmoustache]

So you don’t have to watch the video every time you need one of these hacks immediately:

1. If you feel nauseated, smell rubbing alcohol.

2. If you feel like throwing up, start humming.

3. If you have a runny nose, put your tongue to the roof of your mouth and press your thumb to your forehead for about 20 seconds.

4. If you have a headache, pinch the webbing between your fingers and rub it back and forth for about 1 minute.

5. If you’re lightheaded from standing up too quickly, clench your butt cheeks.

6. If your arm’s dead/has the pins and needles feeling, rock your head back and forth.

7. If you need to pee badly, think of sex to trick your brain and relieve the pressure.

8. If you have a migraine, stick your hands in ice water.

9. If you wanna calm your racing heart, blow on your thumb.

[natandacat]

If you're lightheaded while standing up, opening and closing your fists is also something to do. Also try stretching before getting up!

(These are vasovagal syncope tricks, to get the blood pumping where it should be)

[shutyourmoustache]

Thanks for adding another hack!

I used the humming one when I randomly started dry heaving today, and that shit worked so fast!👌🏼

[yamino]

A trick I have used often when I stand up too fast/start to see my vision black out is to quickly hold my hands up over my head.  A doctor taught me this, it has always helped!

[celepom]

To stop hiccupping I tell myself “Do it, hiccup, do it again, I dare you” and it’s like they get stage fright because they stop. You can say it out loud, but doing it mentally also works.

[grenade-maid]

Whenever I see someone refer to "Victorian era-" for places outside the UK I'm tempted to start saying shit like "Han Dynasty era Rome", "Soviet era Australia" etc

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

“Welcome to Soviet America, home of the McDonalds and Cocaine Cola. Long live Comrade Reagan.”

[olivia-online]

The Civil War, or as I like to call it, Late Tokugawa Period America

[freedom-of-fanfic]

how anti-shipping fosters, encourages, perpetuates, and glorifies abuse in fandom (masterpost)

these subjects come up again and again, so I wanted a masterpost of links to what I’ve written about how fandom anti-shipper culture is tightly related to abuse in fandom.

note: predators, abusers, and bullies are present everywhere in fandom, not just in anti-shipping or pro-shipping (or neutral) circles. this is because abusers will use whatever they have available to them as a tool for abuse. learn warning signs of abusive and/or controlling behavior; these will be far more reliable red flags than what a person ships in fandom.

my objections to anti-shipping (in brief) & an alternative solution to predators in fandom.

I believe that many antis are coming from a genuine place. I just strongly disagree with where your focus lies and your chosen methods of dissemination. In fact, I feel that anti-shipping actively aids predators, for reasons which I’ll try to summarize in brief here.

Anti Shipping is Abusive, The Post

the anti-shipping community is a great place for abusers because it encourages people to develop unquestioning loyalty to and trust of internal authorities, become deeply vulnerable to shame cycles, isolate themselves from outsiders, and avoid critical thought or skepticism of rhetoric.

The icing on the cake is that the things that antis say are ‘bad bad bad’ - incest, ‘pedophilia’ (they mean csa), and abuse - barely even resemble actual incest, csa, and abuse. As a result, when confronted with the real thing I suspect most anti-shippers are completely defenseless.

no matter how hard some anti-shippers try to deny it, they cannot both stop shipping/prevent the creation of potentially harmful content and also condemn harassment and threats.

By demanding/requiring that others change their behavior on sites where antis have no moderating authority, they create loopholes for and/or implicitly approve of action taken to force people to comply with anti-shipper demands. this silent approval gives antis unspoken permission to exaggerate, lie, and create scaremonger material about anything or anyone they disapprove of or want to silence. It also gives abusers in the anti ranks an overlooked ‘blind spot’ from which they are allowed to harass, defame, dogpile, threaten, blackmail, doxx, suicide bait, and assault people who don’t change in response to anti demands.

an unfunny joke about antis

the funny thing about bullies - especially self-righteous bullies that travel in packs, such as antis - is that 99.8% of the time they come out on top of any conflict they get into. this is because as long as a bully’s opponent gives even the slightest fuck about playing fair, being kind, and giving the benefit of the doubt, they will never out-bully a bully.

Miscellaneous:

anti-shippers help abusers hide in a sea of false flags.

anti-shippers perpetuate the false belief that it’s easy to spot an abuser by what they ship, or their age, or some other obvious, easy to see flag.

it’s usually anti-shippers that are deliberately pushing adult content on kids - ostensibly to ridicule it, but still inappropriate

anti-shippers gaslight fandom

Cultlike & authoritarian aspects of anti-shipping (how it traps people in anti-shipping friendsgroups & makes it difficult to leave):

harassment and abuse of others as a form of signaling loyalty to the anti-shipping cause

regarding cults and cultlike communities (and how easy it is to get sucked in)

anti-shippers benefit from an impossible task because the goal is feeling good about themselves by putting other down

antis endanger themselves by learning information that contradicts their worldview, which perpetuates anti-intellectualism.

‘ i didn’t read this but it’s awful’ - loyalty signalling, anti-intellectualism, and a form of harassment rolled together

and finally a few links to my favorite external resource that very beautifully describes why anti-shipping works the way it does:

How Good People and Well-intentioned Groups Go Bad

How it Feels to Be a Bigot

Things About Brainwashing [Everybody] Needs to Know

How to Recognize Gaslighting

How to Recognize a Moral Abuser

[othersidhesocial]

An extension of the toxic Cancel Culture

[alwaysscreechingbasement]

[wrathofthestag]

(X)

[theconcealedweapon]