#anna problems

[deadlilred]

Tbh dance mornings are the worst bc I gotta get up and eat for energy but I'm like 0% hungry so I force myself but then I end up wasting or putting it in the fridge bc I didn't eat a lot of it

[weareallfromearth]

People talk about hearts being broken, but it can be more useful to think of your heart as a phoenix. In terrible moments, like the one you survived, your heart can burst into flames; but then, always, it’s born again from the ashes. Be patient with yourself, and be gentle with the scrawny, squawky baby bird in your chest. It will be strong again. It just needs time.

http://the-toast.net/2016/06/23/aunt-acid-3/

[weareallfromearth]

Dursleys

People who know me probably think I'm almost always a gentle, patient person, and that is what I strive to be, sometimes to a damaging extent because it stops me remembering to actually defend myself when unfairly attacked, or say no when I mean no, or even realise when things bother me. But sometimes when people perceive me as gentle and patient, it's because they haven't seen my biggest irrational enormous rage trigger in action at its worst: abusive/neglectful parents. It isn't kind and it isn't fair and I can usually - in fact, always - remember things like the cycle of abuse and the need to treat people with compassion and kindness in order to deal with these things for long enough to manage the anger and respond appropriately, which is bloody necessary because of my area of professional interest. But whenever my defences are down, whenever I'm not feeling especially patient or kind, whenever I'm already exhausted by compassion fatigue or my own problems, and I encounter a case of a parent who looks at a phrase like "best interests of the child" (which I consider to be flat out sacred and nothing less) with dubiousness or disdain or disgust, when I find out about the things some of my friends' parents did to them or failed to do for them, I ... I feel so full of fury that I don't know what to do. I feel like screaming and crying and going up to fight God for not stopping what happened, I feel like challenging my friends' parents to duels, I feel like becoming a foster parent (which I suspect I should never ever do, but who bloody well knows), I feel like finding someone to drive out to the middle of a field with so that we can scream and scream and scream. There is cruel, unfair, shitty anger in me, and this is the soul and centre of the place where it lives.

[weareallfromearth]

Have you heard that idea that the explanation for so many of human history's wars and miseries and so many of our mistakes is that the majority of us as humans for most of history have been carrying around heaps of PTSD and trauma? That idea gives me so so much hope. Because it is the opposite of original sin. Because it means that it is possible for things to change, for us to heal, for us to not make the same mistakes next time around. It is possible that someday we will not mostly be the walking wounded. It is possible that someday we will mostly be free.

[weareallfromearth]

Non-toxic masculinity/in defense of masc approaches

Set aside the reality that many people who identify as men or women or genderqueer do not identify strongly with traits traditionally associated with masculinity or femininity, and that that is more than valid and more than important. (This should not be set aside.)

I think a positive femininity and a positive masculinity are ones that allow you the freedom to take on both femme and masc traits without feeling stuck with them or burdened by them, and that allow you to borrow from the other when one toolkit isn't big enough, or just allow you to use every tool in every toolkit, while still admitting that there are some tools you feel yourself more drawn toward (if you do - I’m writing as a cis person and a person who identifies strongly with the gender I was assigned at birth, sometimes so strongly that I overidentify with the associated femme ‘helper’ traits to my own detriment). I'm very femme in my essential outlook and approach to things, but here are some things from the masculinity toolkit that I find indispensable and have sort of had to fight to access without feeling guilty or wrong or just weird: - the acknowledgment and embracing of anger as an indicator that something needs to change; - the acknowledgment of lust and personal physical preferences and desires; - a willingness to fight for my own interests rather than compromise into the ground; - a willingness and excitement about embracing leadership positions, and a capacity to believe I am good enough for them and will not ruin everything; 

- a willingness to allow other people to be my support rather than always supporting others and making my goals secondary; - a willingness to embrace my own tendency to take initiative in a crisis situation or when others are uncertain or when I actually do know best about something; - a willingness to express a view that might result in social opprobrium; - an occasional stubborn desire to do something myself without help or the input of others, resulting in me challenging myself to do something I wasn't sure I could do; - a willingness to take risks that may look foolish to others, and a willingness to make mistakes and be bold; - an essential stubborn arrogant streak that stops me from losing myself. I think if anyone loses access to the masculinity half of the toolkit, they are at terrible emotional risk. It's just very clearly only half of the integrated-human-being toolkit, and I don't think the problem with masculinity is that it is toxic in its essence; it's that it is toxic when a person is essentially taught never to touch the feminine toolkit, and the pain associated with that becomes more and more and more striking when people start casually deriding the masculine toolkit. Because one of the things men are taught to do, culturally, is self-sacrifice for the good of others, and the language of 'dismantling toxic masculinity' sounds a lot like 'give up everything you have, give up the few things we've let you have'. And given that one of the only emotions men are still 'allowed' to access is anger, and given that anger is being more and more and more derided and demonised, one can see why the response would be lashing out in anger.

Crucially, a healthy masculinity and a healthy femininity need to not demand that the people around you do all the work for you if they have easier access than you to one of the toolkits - that’s how, for example, women doing disproportionate emotion-work forever happens, and that’s also how men-should-do-the-heavy-lifting happens. But we are also all damaged by the culture, and sometimes playing co-op games (friendships, romantic relationships, collaborations, teamwork) means allowing different people to play to the strengths they find it easier to access, all while trying to build a world where we aren’t as damaged, individually and collectively, so we can all play co-op better.

[weareallfromearth]

If someone tells you you're doing a bunch of things wrong, it is important to be willing to listen - but it is also wildly and seriously important to check with other people whether you're actually doing a bunch of things wrong. Ideally people who are not just going to coddle you, ideally people you see as having good heads on their shoulders, but ... Just, it's really important not to just take one person's word for it when they see parts of you as a Problem, and a lot of people are way too quick to assign themselves way more guilt than they actually deserve.

[queen-nitori]

Going to Santa Monica beach!! Wish I had my Ai plush to take some nice beach shoots!

[alphaanna-blog]

do you ever just look at a person and think “God damn you’re perfect”? In your heart you know that nothing will come of it but you know that you could love them if you had the chance.