Life Is...

Nappy-haired sista with a passion for mental health, social justice, love and life. Black feminist, womanist, survivor, insider/outsider, living life on the margins.

[whythedarkness]

Welcome to #HSBC John. Will you end #HSBC fossil fuel loans & increase funding for renewable energy? #BigShift thndr.me/8LYZY3 http://thndr.me/8LYZY3

[tatiannatarot]

Act like you know betta! Life Affirmations & Ancient Wisdom right here 🔥

Via @humansofny

#praisethyself #selfcare #selfcrowned

[the-red-lotus-blog-deactivated2]

Trying to fix yourself is a form of judgment and judgment will keep you eternally imprisoned within separation. Awakening is not about fixing yourself. It is about revealing every aspect of yourself with love, acceptance and compassion.

Leonard Jacobson (via the-red-lotus-blog)

[fathernick]

Wrong meditation technique

Many Westerners think meditation is about having a blank empty mind with no though occurring at all.

They get upset when they can’t achieve an empty thoughtless mind. But actually this is an incorrect understanding of meditation and the wrong goal to aim for.

You’ll never get a blank empty mind, meditation is actually about observation, just watch whatever is going on, witness it without getting involved. Be just a witness without any action or reaction to whatever you witness.

Namo Amida Buddha

[madness-narrative]

The child simultaneously identifies with the authority figure who didn’t meet the need (“They’re right,I’m bad for being this way.”), and identifies with the part who was rejected (“I’m afraid, and they don’t love me because I’m afraid.”). The child, completely incapable of grasping any of this consciously, nevertheless learns to believe: “There must be something wrong with me. That’s why they are treating me this way. It’s my fault. It’s not their fault.” In the child’s mind there can’t be anything wrong with the parents because survival depends on them. The child decides to be “perfect,” to do everything right, to be really good in order to be loved. “They don’t love me because there is something wrong with me. I have to think of everything. If I do it just right and never let that happen again, then they’ll love me.” […] That’s an example of the conclusion we drew when we first began learning to abandon ourselves. We concluded that the reason we were being rejected was that we had a need, and having a need means you’re bad. If you’re bad, you’re unlovable, and if you’re unlovable, you won’t be able to survive. So from that perspective, the bottom line is: Don’t Have Needs. Once we turn our attention outward, most of us never address the original unmet need we were traumatised into abandoning. Most of us don’t know it is that original unmet need that has been controlling our lives. The need? To be loved and accepted exactly as we are.

Cheri Huber, There Is Nothing Wrong with You (via madness-narrative)

[madness-narrative]

Wanting “better treatment” is not the same as wanting the right to be free of all unwanted labels, treatments, and procedures. “Better” treatment, in the absence of fundamental rights, is merely seeking a more comfortable, less confining prison. The argument that “mental illness is an illness like any other,” or that we should be working to combat “stigma” is, I believe, a fundamental misunderstanding of how to improve our status and our rights. “Mental illness,” given the current state of the law, is not the same as heart disease, cancer, or diabetes, which don’t carry the same legal consequences. Arguments that these should be merely medical, and not legal, matters ignore the fact of the continued existence of involuntary commitment and the resulting loss of liberty and autonomy. Mental patients are stigmatised not by language, but by the fact that it is legally acceptable to treat them differently. The “stigma” of mental illness does not flow from the use of words, and cannot be changed merely by changing language. The stigma is very real–being put into a mental institution is simply not the same thing as voluntarily entering a medical hospital (which one, of course, has the right to leave at any time.) Even the word “stigma” obscures what the real problem is–the fact that “mental patients” really are second-class citizens who don’t enjoy the basic rights of others. Only by fighting this very real discrimination can we realistically talk about doing away with “stigma”. Anything else is merely an Orwellian use of language. George Orwell would find the language of the psychiatric system an instructive example of his profound understanding of how words can be used to transform and distort. Just as Big Brother uses benign words to mask totalitarianism, so does psychiatry use words like “help” and “treatment” to disguise coercion. “Helping” people against their will is an obvious example. “Help,” in the common sense meaning of the word must flow from an individual perception of what is needed. There are many things that can be done to a person against his or her will; helping is simply not one of them.

Judi Chamberlin, On Our Own: Patient-Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System (via madness-narrative)

[madnecessaryblog-blog]

Try to remember that taking care of ourselves in the emotional and physical sense is a revolutionary act. The world can be a really sick place, and we need to care for ourselves in ways we were never taught we’d have to.

Kim Christoffel (via madnecessaryblog-blog)

[madness-narrative]

Our gut feelings signal what is safe, life-sustaining, or threatening, even if we cannot quite explain why we feel a particular way. Our sensory interiority continuously sends us subtle messages about the needs of our organism. Gut feelings also help us evaluate what is going on around us. They warn us that the guy who is approaching feels creepy, but they also convey that a room with western exposure surrounded by daylilies makes us feel serene. If you have a comfortable connection with your inner sensations–if you trust them to give you accurate information–you will feel in charge of your body, your feelings, and your self. However, traumatised people chronically feel unsafe inside their bodies: The past is alive in the form of gnawing interior discomfort. Their bodies are constantly bombarded by visceral warning signs, and, in an attempt to control these processes, they often become expert at ignoring their gut feelings and in numbing awareness of what is played out inside. They learn to hide from their selves. The more people try to push away and ignore internal warning signs, the more likely they are to take over and leave them bewildered, confused, and ashamed. People who cannot comfortably notice what is going on inside become vulnerable to respond to any sensory shift either by shutting down or by going into a panic–they develop a fear of fear itself. We now know that panic symptoms are maintained largely because the individual develops a fear of the bodily sensations associated with panic attacks. The attack may be triggered by something he or she knows is irrational, but fear of the sensations keeps them escalating into a full-body emergency. “Scared stiff” and “frozen in fear” (collapsing and going numb) describe precisely what terror and trauma feel like. They are its visceral foundation. The experience of fear derives from primitive responses to threat where escape is thwarted in some way. People’s lives will be held hostage to fear until that visceral experience changes. The price for ignoring or distorting the body’s messages is being unable to detect what is truly dangerous or harmful for you and, just as bad, what is safe or nourishing. Self-regulation depends on having a friendly relationship with your body. Without it you have to rely on external regulation–from medication, drugs like alcohol, constant reassurance, or compulsive compliance with the wishes of others. Many of my patients respond to stress not by noticing and naming it, but by developing migraine headaches or asthma attacks… Suppressing our inner cries for help does not stop our stress hormones from mobilising the body.

Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (via madness-narrative)

[madness-narrative]

Until we are able to use our own words to tell our own stories, the context we find ourselves in–in this case, the psychiatric system–says our stories for us, and usually gets it wrong. In the context of the medical model, the story we learn to say is that we are ill. We begin to see ourselves as ill. We tell stories of illness, and the psychiatric system, and, by extension, society, accepts illness as the story of our distress. Being able to tell your own story–not the illness story–sets a new social context–one in which mad people are seen in a new light… In part, healing happens in the re-storying of our lives…. When he proclaimed, “You have a mental illness”, I’d responded, “I thought I had stories to tell.

Beth Filson in Searching for a Rose Garden, Russo and Sweeney (Thanks, Lucy Johnstone.)

[dickenchippers-blog]

If I see one more “WOULD YOU QUESTION A DIABETIC WHY THEY NEED INSULIN?!?!” post regarding mental illness, I’m gonna scream.

Antidepressants/antipsychotics create imbalances in the brain that were not originally there, and then your brain is forced to work dysfunctionally in order to compensate. They work, yes, but why and how they work is still pretty much a mystery.

As serious as mental illness is and as personally as I feel about it, it absolutely should NOT be treated like physical illness (at least, not at this point in time). It’s not diabetes. It’s not cancer. That doesn’t mean that mental illnesses are somehow “less”…they’re just very different and shouldn’t be lumped in with physical ailments. Medications for mental illness weren’t even developed in remotely the same way that medications for physical illnesses were. There’s no proof of a chemical imbalance causing any mental illness. Your brain might be able to get sick, but we have no flipping clue why.

I could rant about this forever but it always ends in me getting flamed for it, so I’d better not.

[frontpagewoman]

[wordsnquotes]

Take a shower, wash off the day. Drink a glass of water. Make the room dark. Lie down and close your eyes. Notice the silence. Notice your heart. Still beating. Still fighting. You made it, after all. You made it, another day. And you can make it one more. You’re doing just fine.

Charlotte Eriksson (via wordsnquotes)

[dr-archeville]

What the Fidget Spinners Fad Reveals About Disability Discrimination

Autism news and resources: from autistic people, professionals, and parents

I’m angry about the sudden popularity of fidget spinners, but probably not for the reasons you think.  I’m not mad that they’re disruptive in class, or obnoxiously trendy.  I’m furious because of what they reveal about societal power structures, and the pathologizing of disabled people by non-disabled persons.

Autistic people (and others with developmental disabilities) have been fighting a war for decades.  It’s a war against being forcibly, often brutally, conditioned to behave more like neurotypicals, no matter the cost to our own comfort, safety, and sanity.  And those of us who need to stim in order to concentrate (usually by performing small, repetitive behaviors like, oh I don’t know, spinning something) have endured decades of “Quiet Hands” protocols, of being sent to the principal’s office for fidgeting, of being told “put that down/stop that and pay attention!,” when we are in fact doing the very thing that allows us to pay attention instead of being horribly distracted by a million other discomforts such as buzzing lights and scratchy clothing.  We’ve had our hands slapped and our comfort objects confiscated.  We’ve been made to sit on our hands.   We’ve been tied down.  Yes, disabled children get restrained — physically restrained — in classrooms and therapy sessions and many other settings, for doing something that has now become a massive fad.

Think about this: Decades of emotional punishment, physical violence, and other abuses.  And then some guy (who just happens to be in a position with more social clout than most disabled people will ever attain) writes an article about how having a fidget toy helps him concentrate during meetings, and all of a sudden, every neurotypical person in America is falling all over themselves to get a fidget toy of their own.  The first time I heard about the fidget spinner craze on the news, I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.  But I was leaning toward “cry,” for the reasons I just explained, and because the irony made me feel ill.  Sometimes the universe has a cruel sense of humor.

This is important.  Really important, so read this next sentence twice: Something that was considered entirely pathological and in dire need of correction when done by disabled people is now perfectly acceptable because it is being done by non-disabled people.  This should make you stop and think, especially if you are someone who works with, educates, or researches people with diagnoses like autism.

What else might we de-pathologize overnight once the “right” people, the “normal” people, the “healthy” people start doing it?  Will somebody write a tweet that makes it socially acceptable to avoid eye contact?  Will a Facebook meme make it suddenly trendy to have texture sensitivities?  Will hand-flapping become cool after it shows up in a music video?

Normality is an illusion.  It doesn’t exist.  Human culture is constantly changing, and our everyday behaviors are changing with it, more than ever in the fast-paced digital age (yeah, I’m old enough to remember when phones couldn’t go everywhere with you, and believe me, social norms were very different back then).  Even if “normal” did exist, setting it as the goal towards which disabled people should strive is unacceptable.

Because insisting that disabled people act more like non-disabled people is not about improving functionality, it’s about who has the power to set social standards.  It’s the same reason certain accents and dialects are considered less “educated” and the people who speak that way snubbed.  It’s the same reason people with one skin tone are portrayed as less capable, or more dangerous, than people with the majority’s skin tone.  It's​ why “women’s work” is devalued and underpaid.  In short, it’s oppression, plain and simple.

Perhaps I should be more hopeful.  Perhaps we’re moving towards an era of acceptance.  Even before the fidget spinner hit the spotlight, more and more professionals have agreed that sensory needs are real, and should be acknowledged and met.  Many websites now sell chewy toys, app stores abound with sensory relaxation apps, and plenty of autism “treatment” programs (though certainly not all) have moved away from their prior focus on sitting still with immobilized hands while grudgingly accepted that stimming is actually a perfectly healthy thing for autistic people to do.

But the power structure is still there.  There’s still a rigid hierarchy of who gets to decide which behaviors are normal or pathological.  There’s still a societal subtext that tells people who are different “be less like yourself and more like us.“  We need to work on that. 

[smallsmallrose-deactivated20221]

SOMEONE FUCKING SAID IT

[navigatethestream]

Last month, the City of Atlanta announced that it would allow Project Q Atlanta to install a rainbow crosswalk that would be privately funded to “support Atlanta’s LGBTQ community.” While the gesture may look nice, and it sounds like it could be a great step in the right direction, it ignores the many issues that LGBTQIA+ people face in a city like Atlanta. This is not the first time Atlanta has sold shallow allyship to queer and trans people in lieu of seriously committing itself to the liberation of all queer and trans people. In October of 2015, during Atlanta Pride, a rainbow crosswalk was installed in the same place as the one announced in June. Over $40,000 was fundraised to implement this crosswalk, to the discontent of many organizers who believed the money should be spent on resources of necessity. What is worse, the city removed the crosswalk in 2015 two weeks after Pride, stating that they had no intent of making it an indefinite establishment. Almost two years later, the crosswalk is not only being installed again, but this time it cost nearly $200,000 and is being placed in Midtown - one of the most affluent parts of Atlanta. Project Q and the City of Atlanta are actively choosing to misuse funds, private or otherwise, that could combat systemic cissexism and heterosexism, or discrimination against LGBTQIA+ people in the city. In Atlanta, around one third of all homeless youth identify as LGBTQIA+, as reported by Project Q. In 2016, Solutions Not Punishment Collaborative (SNaPCo) released a report noting that the greatest threat to women of trans experience is the Atlanta Police Department (APD). Detailed in the SNaPCo report, trans people of color have said that they are sexually assaulted by APD, that APD has a pattern and practice of profiling trans people, and that trans people’s encounters with APD make trans people less safe. It also explains exactly what actions the city could take to make Atlanta safer for trans people. Instead of spending money on this crosswalk, money could have been spent on renovating already existing homeless shelters like Lost-n-Found Youth, which is the only LGBTQ focused homeless shelter in the southern US region and is poorly funded. The funds could have been spent on repairing abandoned homes and making them homeless shelters for LGBTQIA+ youth. The city could have spent the necessary money on finding and implementing solutions to end harassment and sexual violence against trans bodies. If Project Q and Mayor Kasim Reed cared at all about LGBTQIA+ people in Atlanta, this money could have been spent on investigating APD, decriminalizing sex work, prosecuting police that have been reported for harassing trans people, creating pre-arrest and pre-booking diversion programs, and all other calls to action set forth by SNaPCo, SONG, and other organizations fighting for the liberation of Black and Brown queer and trans people. It is not enough to simply perform ‘allyship’ when one has the privilege, access, ability, and finances to combat domination against queer and trans people of color. If liberation vis-a-vis queer and trans lives mattered to cities and companies, they would divest from private prisons, slave labor, and enabling substance abuse in queer communities and would instead invest in housing, funding, feeding, and aiding in the survival of queer and trans people. Emblematic gestures sans liberatory actions to follow do nothing for the most vulnerable of marginalized groups. Simply put, symbolism is not enough. If this crosswalk symbolizes anything, it represents just how cisgender heterosexual (and cishomonormative) people are willing to walk over the most disenfranchised queer and trans people for a false sense of allyship and representation.

Symbolism is Not Enough by Da’Shaun Harrison (via navigatethestream)

[whythedarkness]

Use your vote this June 8th - 1000s of disabled lives depend on it! #CripTheVoteUK #GE2017 http://thndr.me/uXP1pf

[angelabassetts]

Daughters of the Dust (1991) 1/5 Cinematography 

At the dawn of the 20th century, a multi-generational family in the Gullah community on the Sea Islands off of South Carolina – former West African slaves who adopted many of their ancestors’ Yoruba traditions – struggle to maintain their cultural heritage and folklore while contemplating a migration to the mainland, even further from their roots.[x]

Director: Julie Dash 

Cinematography: Arthur Jafa

[j-applebee-deactivated20190216]

That Loving Feeling is Gone

Racist white folks broke my heart.  Power wasn’t just unbalanced in our relationships, it was positively skewed.  My choice of partners for a quick shag, wham bang, see you later, could be wide as I want.  Yet anything else; deeper relationships, down on one knee proposals were for white folks and their polycules alone.

When I realised I could not be Polyamorous in this society, I felt like a failure.  Poly wasn’t something I did - it was who I was.  Had I lied to myself all this time?  Surely love conquers all?  My heartbreak was a brutal crack in the core of my being.  I knew I’d never recover that loving feeling, the full expression of how I navigate sex and relationships.

I’ve experienced racism all my life, yet nothing could have prepared me for racism from people who said they loved me.  I cannot imagine the cognitive tangle of thoughts and actions that lead to such a thing, but down in my bones, I knew I was never seen as a full human to them.  My breasts, my heart and my lips could express my love in acceptable ways, but my skin would forever undermine all of that in their eyes.

I have received white tears, white guilt, but never white respect or action when I was bereft.  I just get silence.

Most of my partners have been white.  My two black boyfriends both put me in hospital, but white partner’s violence was a slow terrible poison.  How could I fight against an assumption?  What moves can combat neglect?  When my every action paints me as the angry black person, what do I do?  How do I react?

Letting go of things hurt, but it means my shoulders no longer slump from the strain of carrying such a heavy load.  I can now walk upright instead of wishing I were taller, less bent over.  My arms and my hands are empty for the first time - empty and open to embrace whatever comes next.  And if nothing comes, I can hold myself.

When white Poly people don’t see People of Colour as human, we become disposable.  We don’t consider the feelings of a piece of paper - we write on it, use it up and when we are done, throw it in the bin and pick up another sheet.  This is what happens to Poly People of Colour.  White folks fetishise us, especially if we are LGBT+ and/or into kink.  We are hypervisible in a sea of white faces, but once we serve our purpose, we are ignored, neglected or mistreated.  We are never primary partners; we are interchangeable and something to add spice to your white vanilla world.

Poly People of Colour are at a disadvantage.  We face many issues that white people never will.  Most of us don’t have the family, money, energy or time resources white people have.  We are more likely to experience domestic violence, sexual assault, poverty and physical/mental issues.  We shouldn’t have to factor in a broken heart to all of the above.

My identity of Poly turned into an identity of trash.  Rejecting the label will lead to yet more isolation for me, but it will be an honest isolation instead of the pretence of community and belonging.  I do not want to be a square on someone’s bingo card of experiences.  I deserve better.

I have so much love to give.  I don’t want to close off my heart because of racism, but what choice do I have?  You may not want to marry me or anyone else, but I ask white Poly people to be upfront and honest with your desires.  Don’t tell me you love me if it isn’t so.  If all you want is a hookup with no contact after, say it.  I may turn you down, but I’ll respect your honesty.  Right now I don’t respect you at all.